Prateek Tanmay
India’s double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker paid a heartfelt tribute to her long-time coach, Jaspal Rana, following his death, remembering him not just as the man who shaped her shooting career but also as someone who became one of her closest confidants.
“I still can’t believe it,” Manu told Olympics.com on Friday. “It is unbelievable news. I am struggling to process it. He was not just my coach, mentor or guide, but also a friend who understood me better than most people.”
Rana’s death has left Indian shooting in mourning, with tributes pouring in for one of the sport’s most influential figures in India. For Manu, however, the loss is personal.
“The shooting range will never feel the same again,” she said. “His voice, his advice, his presence – they were a part of my everyday life. It hurts to think that I won’t see him standing there again.”
Their partnership transformed one of the toughest phases of Manu’s career into its finest. After the disappointment of the Tokyo Olympics, Rana helped her rediscover her confidence and rhythm, laying the foundation for a historic Paris Games in which she became the first Indian athlete to win two medals in a single edition of the Olympics.
But Manu said the biggest lessons Rana left her had little to do with technique or target scores.
“He taught me how to fight, how to stay grounded and how to never give up,” she said. “The lessons he gave me will stay with me forever.”
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She added that discipline and commitment were values Rana reinforced every day.
“It was discipline and commitment that he taught me every single day,” she said.
Looking back, Manu said she has come to appreciate the demanding standards her coach held her to.
“There were times when he was strict, and there were times when he simply listened,” Manu recalled. “He always wanted the best from me, even when I did not understand it at the time. Looking back now, every lesson he taught me had a purpose.”
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2008 Beijing Olympics gold medalist Abhinav Bindra also paid his tribute to Rana, saying that he was one of his “earliest inspirations”.
“I am deeply saddened by the passing of Jaspal Rana. When I first started shooting in 1996, he was already a star – already a junior world champion from the 1994 World Championships, already someone every young shooter in India looked up with awe and inspiration. For me, he was one of the earliest inspirations,” Bindra wrote on X on Friday.
Rest in peace, Jaspal – you will always be remembered with deep affection, respect and gratitude. pic.twitter.com/Lk9XD1oM1y
— Abhinav A. Bindra OLY (@Abhinav_Bindra) June 12, 2026
Over more than three decades in the sport, Rana built a legacy that few Indian shooters can match.
He remains India’s most successful Commonwealth Games athlete, winning 15 medals, including nine golds, across four editions between 1994 and 2006. He also enjoyed sustained success at the Asian Games, establishing himself as one of India’s finest pistol shooters.
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Born in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, Rana announced himself as a prodigious talent in 1994. That year, he won the 25m centre-fire pistol gold at the Asian Games in Hiroshima and set a junior world record at the World Shooting Championships in Milan. He later represented India at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and remained one of the country’s leading pistol shooters through the late 1990s and early 2000s.
His achievements earned him the Arjuna Award in 1994 and the Padma Shri three years later. Retirement from competition marked the beginning of another successful chapter, as Rana turned to coaching and helped nurture India’s next generation of shooters, with Bhaker emerging as his most celebrated student. In 2020, his contribution to Indian sport was recognised with the Dronacharya Award.
