JASPAL RANA, A CHAMPION shooter himself, is known to young sports fans as the coach of Manu Bhaker. The 48-year-old Asian Games gold medallist is a father figure to the Haryana ace, but their relationship has had its rocky patches. They had a public fallout before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and stopped talking to each other. It took a courageous phone call from Manu to reunite the duo. Rana speaks about that conversation and more in an interview with THE WEEK. Excerpts:
Q/ When did you first meet Manu Bhaker?
A/ It was maybe in 2016 or 2017. We had a lot of shooters from all over the country at the Tughlakabad shooting range [in Delhi]; she was one of them. For me they were just regular kids at the same level.
Q/ How did you find Manu as a person and as a shooter?
A/ We had many good shooters. Manu had [won at] the youth Olympics and Commonwealth Games in 2018. That is when she started shooting well and we trained further.
Q/ You did not want Manu to take part in the 25m pistol event in Tokyo; controversy then broke out. Would you please elaborate on what happened?
A/ Manu was only 18 at the time. She was doing well in [10m] air pistol and [10m] air pistol mixed event. She was good but three events were too much for her then. But, because of some dirty politics, she was told I was against her. I never knew that till the time she told me. I became the culprit for the entire national shooting team. Things went from bad to worse and we stopped talking.
Q/ How did you reunite?
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