The volunteer at the mixed zone of the Chateauroux Shooting Centre brought a tray for the waiting Indian journalists to place their cellphones on. Looking at it, Manu Bhaker joked that she would now have a lot of phones to choose from.

She was in that kind of mood.

The 22-year-old had just won bronze in the 10m air pistol, giving India its first medal at the 2024 Olympics.

As a buoyant Manu held court for the next nine minutes, answering every question from the media, one’s mind went back to Tokyo three years ago when she had left the shooting range in tears.

On Sunday, her face resembled the sky outside — bright and sunny after days of gloom and rain.

“Feels great,” she smiled.

After making certain she had the bronze in her pocket, a smiling Manu had turned towards the gallery, where the Indian journalists and her teammates were, and pumped her fist.

Her score of 221.7 was behind Oh Ye Jin’s (243.2) and Kim Yegi’s (241.3), both South Koreans. Oh’s gold came with an Olympic record. Manu had narrowly missed silver, but she wasn’t complaining.

After what she went through at Tokyo, Paris was a story of redemption.

It went the other way with Chinese shooter Jiang Ranxin. The world champion and Tokyo Olympic Games bronze medallist came sixth.

A public fallout with her personal coach Jaspal Rana in the run-up to the Tokyo Games had affected Manu’s performance. Last year, the shooter from Jhajjar district in Haryana patched things up with the coach.

In Saturday’s qualification rounds, Manu had looked focused and calm. She carried the momentum into Sunday, not for once dropping out of the top three.

“I kept myself focused. I read the Gita last night (Saturday), and Krishna’s quote where he asks Arjun to focus on what he has in his hands and not on the results is something I always try to follow. I am not a deeply religious person but, yes, being religious gives you inner strength,” Manu said at the mixed zone at the shooting centre, some 270km from Paris.

“After the first (qualifying) round, I was nervous…. The moment the qualifying match finished, I started to prepare myself for the final…. I was putting (in) my best effort (and) not trying to change anything or make it better.”

Manu is from an affluent and influential family in Jhajjar. The daughter of Ramkishan and Sumedha had tried different sporting disciplines, including boxing, before zeroing in on shooting.

Her talent caught Rana’s eye during a junior camp by the National Rifle Association of India. He immediately took her under his wings.

After their public spat, Rana had at one point said he would not see her face again. But the intervention of the Bhaker family reunited the duo.

“He plays a huge role in this,” was Manu’s prompt answer, pointing to the bronze medal hung around her neck, when asked about Rana. “His hard work has paid off.”

In Tokyo, Manu had participated in three events — the 10m pistol, 10m pistol mixed and 25m pistol — and flopped.

“I was young (just 19) and maybe I was at fault. I have learnt from that,” she was candid on Sunday.

In Paris too, she is participating in the same three events. She now has the 10m air pistol mixed and 25m pistol events lined up.

“I will forget about today from tomorrow (Monday) and prepare for my next two events,” she promised.

At 22, the 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games champion already has a lot of firsts to her credit. She is the youngest Indian to win a gold medal at an ISSF World Cup, and the first Indian shooter and the first female athlete from the country to win gold at the Youth Olympics. That was in 2018.

On Sunday, she added one more to the list of firsts. She is now the first Indian woman shooter to win an Olympic medal. “It was long due,” she said.