It’s often said that finishing fourth in the Olympics is peak agony.
If coming last carries the sting of embarrassment, securing the fourth place inflicts the pain of being so near yet so far, something that can either drive an athlete to future glory or leave them completely crushed.
India’s affair with near misses at sport’s grandest stage has been a long-standing one, beginning way back in 1956.
Here is a look at the instances when Indian athletes came close but ended at just that.
1956, Melbourne
The Indian football team made the semifinals after beating hosts Australia 4-2 in the quarterfinals, with Neville D’Souza becoming the first Asian to score a hat-trick at the Games.
By giving his team the lead, Neville looked like doing an encore in the last-four clash against Yugoslavia. But the Yugoslavians came back strongly in the second half to seal the contest in their favour.
In the bronze medal classification match, India lost to Bulgaria 0-3, drawing to a close an eventful few days which the great P K Banerjee would often reminisce with a hint of understandable anguish.
1960, Rome
The legendary Milkha Singh missed out on a bronze by the narrowest of margins.
The official photo finish of the 400m final at the Olympic Games in Rome on September 06, 1960. It shows Otis Davis of the U.S. (nearer, right) turning his head as Carl Kaufmann of Germany lunges at the tape with his head. This trick, which gave Lee Calhoun of the U.S. the high hurdles title, failed to work for Kaufmann. The judges awarded the race to Davis but gave both athletes the world record smashing time of 44.9s. Malcolm Spence of South Africa is third in 45.5 and India’s Milkha Singh fourth in 45.6.
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The Hindu Archives
Competing in the 400m final and touted as a medal contender, the ‘Flying Sikh’ fell short by a mere 1/10th of a second after slowing down to steal a glance at his fellow competitors, an error that he would regret for the rest of his life.
This would go down as his worst memory after losing his parents in the aftermath of the partition.
Milkha almost gave up the sport after this loss and it required a lot of persuasion for him to hit the track again and win two gold medals in the 1962 Asian Games.
1980, Moscow
With top hockey nations such as the Netherlands, Australia and Great Britain boycotting the Moscow Games over the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, the Indian women’s hockey team had a great chance to finish on the podium in its first attempt itself.
Indian woman hockey player Rekha Mundapan and Natella Krasnikova (USSR) before a hockey match.
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The Hindu Archives
But the team endured the agony of narrowly missing out on a medal, losing its last match to erstwhile USSR 1-3 to finish behind Zimbabwe, Czechoslovakia and the hosts.
1984, Los Angeles
Los Angeles Olympics brought back memories of Milkha in Rome when PT Usha missed the 400m hurdles bronze by 1/100th of a second, making it the closest-ever miss for an Indian athlete in any competition.
P.T. Usha and other Kerala athletes received a rousing welcome on their return from the Los Angeles Olympics.
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The Hindu Archives
Known as the ‘Payyoli Express’, she ended fourth behind Romania’s Christina Cojocaru, but her heroic effort left a lasting impression and she became a household name.
2004, Athens
After a long gap of 20 years, the curse of the fourth place returned to haunt the Indian contingent when the celebrated duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi missed out on the podium at the Athens Games.
Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes during the men’s doubles bronze medal tennis match against Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic in the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens on August 20, 2004.
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The Hindu Archives
Arguably India’s greatest doubles pair in tennis, Paes and Bhupathi missed out on a bronze medal after losing a marathon match to Croatia’s Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic 6-7 6-4 14-16 to end fourth.
Before that, the Indian pair went into the semifinals as favourites but lost to the German duo of Nicholas Kiefer and Rainer Schuttler in straight sets 2-6 3-6.
At the same Games, Kunjarani Devi finished fourth in women’s 48kg weightlifting competition, but she was not really in medal contention.
Disqualified in her final attempt to lift 112.5 kg in the clean and jerk category, Kunjarani finished with a total effort of 190kg, 10kg behind bronze-medallist Thailand’s Aree Wiratthaworn.
2012, London
Shooter Joydeep Karmakar experienced the terrible feeling of finishing a place behind the bronze medal winner in this edition.
File photo of Joydeep Karmakar.
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The Hindu
Karmakar had finished seventh in the qualification round of men’s 50m rifle prone event, and in the finals, he ended just 1.9 points behind the bronze medal winner.
2016, Rio de Janeiro
Gymnast Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian woman gymnast to compete at the Games. After making the final of the women’s vault event, she finished fourth overall with a score of 15.066 and missed the bronze medal by 0.150 points.
Gymnast Dipa Karmakar during the 2016 Olympics.
She introduced the sport to India and gave the message that one doesn’t have to be born in the USA or Russia to become an excellent gymnast.
At the same Games, Abhinav Bindra’s illustrious career was headed for a fairytale finish but a shooter of even his class was not spared of the curse of the fourth, as he missed the bronze medal by a whisker, eight years after his historic gold medal at the Beijing Games.
2020, Tokyo
A little more than four decades after the 1980 Moscow Games, the members of the Indian women’s hockey team once again endured a similar pain at the Tokyo Olympics, missing out on the bronze.
The Indian side punched above its weight triggering an upset to knock three-time Olympic champions Australia to make the semifinal.
Indian women hockey team celebrate their win over Australia during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Oi Hockey Stadium on August 2, 2021 in Tokyo
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Getty Images
In the semifinals, they suffered a 0-1 defeat to Argentina but still had a shot at the bronze. They looked on course to win the elusive medal as Rani Rampal and Co. took a 3-2 lead against Great Britain.
But Britain scored twice to go up 4-3 and clinch the medal, leaving the Indian team in tears.
At the same Games, golfer Aditi Ashok also experienced the agony of missing out on a historic podium finish.
Ranked 200th in the world, the 26-year-old matched the best golfers in the world shot for shot. But, she eventually fell short after coming agonisingly close and finished fourth.