Teen shooting star Manu Bhaker
Teen shooting star Manu Bhaker has admitted that the Indian shooting contingent were in red hot form before the COVID-19 outbreak wreaked havoc and brought the world to the standstill.
The 18-year old pistol shooter, who was one of the medal hopefuls in Tokyo Olympics, said while health comes first she is disappointed at the Games being postponed by the year due to the outbreak of the deadly virus.
"I was expecting some tournaments to be affected but suddenly everything has been impacted by the pandemic, everything is getting cancelled. I feel both positive and disappointed at the same time. We were at the peak of our performance recently and would have been nice to compete at the Olympics right now," Bhaker told India Today.
"But then, health is more important than anything. But when we practice with the team, there is always that competitive spirit, because we can see people doing better than us. So that's lacking," she said.
"I am trying to practice daily because I have a range inside the house itself and I try to take complete of the facility. But there are some issues some days. Like I have a manual machine and it breaks every other day. Also, there are a lot of monkeys here and because the range is open from the backside, they also hamper my practice," Bhaker added, throwing light on her daily routine.
"This time I think there would have been a test event in Japan for the Tokyo Olympics. So this would have been a trial period for us to get through the range and the lighting there. And after that some matches I guess, the Munich World Cup and the Delhi ISSF shooting World Cup," said Bhaker.
