Olympics: India’s tryst with fourth-place heartbreaks | Paris Olympics 2024 News – Times of India

Olympics: India’s tryst with fourth-place heartbreaks | Paris Olympics 2024 News – Times of India



NEW DELHI: It is generally claimed that putting fourth on the Olympics represents the peak of struggling. If ending final is painful due to agony, then ending in fourth place hurts as a result of it’s each shut and much away. This may both propel an athlete to future glory or break them solely.
India has a prolonged historical past of coming near lacking the largest stage of sport, courting again to 1956.
Here’s a take a look at the cases when Indian athletes got here shut however ended at simply that, in keeping with PTI.
1956, Melbourne
Neville D’Souza grew to become the primary Asian participant to attain a hat-trick on the Olympics because the Indian soccer crew superior to the semifinals following their 4-2 victory over the host Australia within the quarterfinals.
Neville seemed to be doing a comeback by giving his crew the lead within the match towards Yugoslavia within the spherical of 4. Nevertheless, the Yugoslavians made an amazing comeback within the second half to win the match.
India’s 0-3 loss to Bulgaria within the bronze medal classification match introduced an finish to an thrilling few days that the legendary P Okay Banerjee would steadily bear in mind with a tinge of justifiable sorrow.
1960, Rome
Milkha Singh, the legendary athlete, narrowly did not safe a bronze medal.
A powerful medal candidate going into the 400m remaining, the ‘Flying Sikh’ misplaced by only a hair’s breadth of a second when he stopped to take a fast take a look at his rivals, a mistake he would dwell to remorse.
After dropping each of his dad and mom within the aftermath of the partition, this may rank as his worst reminiscence.
After this defeat, Milkha was on the verge of giving up on the game; it took a whole lot of convincing to get him again on the monitor and win two gold medals on the Asian Video games in 1962.
1980, Moscow
As a result of USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, main hockey nations just like the Netherlands, Australia, and large Britain boycotted the Moscow Video games. This gave the Indian girls’s hockey crew an amazing probability to position on the rostrum of their very first competitors.
Nevertheless, the crew needed to bear the distress of lacking out on a medal, ending behind Zimbabwe, Czechoslovakia, and the hosts after dropping its final recreation to the previous USSR 1-3.
1984, Los Angeles
Paying homage to Milkha in Rome, the LA Olympics noticed PT Usha miss the 400m hurdles bronze by the narrowest margin ever for an Indian athlete in any competition-1/a centesimal of a second.
However her fourth-place end behind Romania’s Christina Cojocaru, the ‘Payyoli Categorical’ made a long-lasting impression and gained widespread recognition for her valiant try.
2004, Athens
Following a twenty-year lapse, the Indian contingent confronted the spectre of ending fourth as soon as extra when the esteemed pairing of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes did not safe a podium spot on the Athens Video games.
Presumably the perfect tennis doubles crew in India, Paes and Bhupathi completed fourth in a troublesome match towards Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, 6-7 6-4 14-16, lacking out on a bronze medal.
Previous to that, the Indian mixture entered the semifinals because the favorites, however they had been defeated in straight units, 2-6 3-6, by the German crew of Rainer Schuttler and Nicholas Kiefer.
Within the girls’s 48kg weightlifting competitors on the identical Video games, Kunjarani Devi positioned fourth, however she was not really within the working for a medal.
Disqualified from the clear and jerk competitors after failing to raise 112.5 kg in her remaining strive, Kunjarani ended with a complete effort of 190 kg, 10 kg lower than bronze-medalist Aree Wiratthaworn of Thailand.
2012, London
The terrible feeling of ending one spot behind the bronze medal winner on this competitors was skilled by shooter Joydeep Karmakar.
Males’s 50m rifle inclined finalist Karmakar had positioned seventh within the qualification spherical and was only one.9 factors behind the bronze medal winner within the finals.
2016, Rio de Janeiro
The primary feminine gymnast from India to compete on the Video games was Dipa Karmakar. She superior to the ladies’s vault remaining, the place she scored 15.066 to complete fourth general, 0.150 factors in need of the bronze medal.
She introduced the game to India and unfold the concept anybody can develop into a talented gymnast with out having to be born within the USA or Russia.
Eight years after profitable a historic gold medal on the Beijing Video games, Abhinav Bindra was not resistant to the curse of the fourth, as he narrowly missed out on the bronze medal in the identical Video games.
2020, Tokyo
Somewhat greater than forty years after the Moscow Video games in 1980, the Indian girls’s hockey crew suffered a identical destiny in Tokyo, failing to win the bronze medal.
Australia, the three-time Olympic champions, had been upset by the Indian crew, who carried out above their weight and superior to the semifinals.
They misplaced towards Argentina 0-1 within the semifinals, however they had been nonetheless within the working for the bronze. With a 3-2 lead over Nice Britain, Rani Rampal and firm seemed to be headed for the coveted medal.
Nevertheless, the Indian squad was decreased to tears as Britain scored twice to go forward 4-3 and safe the medal.
Golfer Aditi Ashok too went by the heartache of lacking out on a historic podium end on the identical Video games.
The 26-year-old, who’s ranked two hundredth on the planet, was in a position to match the highest golfers on the planet shot for shot. Although she ended fourth and got here agonizingly shut, she finally misplaced out.







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