On a summer evening in mid-2023, Manu Bhaker sat down for a heart-to-heart meeting with her former coach and mentor, Jaspal Rana, at Starbucks in Khan Market, New Delhi. It was their first meeting in almost two years, after an acrimonious split that would be the talk of the town just before the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She, then world ranked #2 in 10m air pistol, alleged he wasn’t giving her enough attention. He, then the national team’s pistol coach, said she wasn’t his only priority and insisted she compete in only two events as opposed to three at the Tokyo Games. Come Olympics, Manu inexplicably faltered, unable to cope with the lofty expectations. Rana, unceremoniously sacked three months before the Games, took a chunk of the blame and the public ire for the India squad’s lacklustre performance at Tokyo, which saw the much-hyped contingent return with zero medals.