Trailblazing pistol shooter Manu Bhaker made history when she became the youngest Indian to win an ISSF World Cup gold medal. Bhaker was only 16 years old when she won the Women’s 10m Air Pistol gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia and has already qualified for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in 2021. Still in her teenage years, she has already won 8 ISSF World Cup medals in individual and mixed team events. In 2019 she made history again at the ISSF World Cup as she clinched India’s first gold medal in Women’s 10m Air Pistol breaking the junior world record.

Born in the village of Goria in the Jhajjar district of Haryana in India, Bhaker was talented at many sports as a child including boxing, skating and tennis, winning several national medals. When she was 14, she chose to concentrate on shooting inspired by her grandfather ch.Rajkaran Saheb who was also a talented shooter. She began practising at a small shooting range in her school, practising for ten hours a day before taking up competitive shooting and tasting success as a junior when she bagged the silver medal at the Asian Junior Championships in 2017. She also won an impressive nine gold medals at the 2017 National games in Kerala, beating World Cup medallist Heena Sidhu and breaking her record in the final with 242.3 points.

Bhaker rose to prominence further in 2018 when she became the youngest ever Indian to win a gold medal at the World Cup after defeating two-time champion Alejandra Zavala. Since then she has picked up numerous gold medals at different levels, and the young shooting sensation will be one to watch in Tokyo.