In an elite competition held every four years among the best athletes around the world, the margins of victory and defeats can be much smaller than we think. It only takes an inch of a hit or a miss, for them to be forgotten or for their tales to be told for decades to come.
In every edition of the Olympic Games, there are some who have missed the podium by a whisker and ended with the heartbreak of the fourth-place finish. So close to the podium, yet so far.
Indians have had their fair share of fourth-place disappointments, from Randhir Shinde in the 1920 edition to Aditi Ashok in 2020 edition of the Olympics. The Sporting News looks at the complete list of all fourth place finishes by Indians in the history of the Olympics.
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Complete list of India's fourth place finishes at the Olympic Games
Here is a list of all the Indian athletes who came close to winning an Olympics, but fell short of the podium, by finish fourth place:
| Athlete | Olympics Year | Event | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Randhir Shinde | 1920 Antwerp Olympics | Men's 54kg freestyle wrestling | Lost in bronze medal playoff round |
| Keshav Mangave | 1952 Helsinki Olympics | Men's 62kg freestyle wrestling | Lost in the final round |
| Indian football team | 1956 Melbourne Olympics | Men's Football | Lost to Yugoslavia in semis & Bulgaria in bronze medal match |
| Milkha Singh | 1960 Rome Olympics | Men's 400m | Missed bronze by 0.1 seconds |
| Prem Nath | 1972 Munich Olympics | Men's 57kg freestyle wrestling | Lost in the seventh round |
| Sudesh Kumar | 1972 Munich Olympics | Men's 52kg freestyle wrestling | Lost due to 7 penalty points |
| Women's hockey team | 1980 Moscow Olympics | Women's hockey | Lost to Soviet Union |
| PT Usha | 1984 Los Angeles Olympics | Women's 400m hurdles | Finished race in 55.42 seconds; lost by 0.01 seconds (55.41 for bronze) |
| Rajinder Singh | 1984 Los Angeles Olympics | Men's 74kg freestyle wrestling | Loss in final round |
| Gurcharan Singh | 2000 Sydney Olympics | Heavyweight boxing | Controversial decision |
| Leander Paes & Mahesh Bhupathi | 2004 Athens Olympics | Men's Tennis doubles | Beat Federer's Switzerland; but lost bronze medal match |
| Kunjarani Devi | 2004 Athens Olympics | Women's 48kg weightlifting | Lifted 190kg; lost bronze medal to a 200kg total lift |
| Joydeep Karmakar | 2012 London Olympics | Men's 50m rifle prone shooting | Missed by 0.9 points (699.1 vs 700.0) |
| Abhinav Bhindra | 2016 Rio Olympics | Men's 10m air rifle shooting | Lost by 0.5 points (10 vs 10.5) |
| Sania Mirza & Rohan Bopanna | 2016 Rio Olympics | Mixed doubles tennis | Lost in semifinals |
| Dipa Karmakar | 2016 Rio Olympics | Women's vault gymnastics | Missed bronze by 0.15 points |
| Women's hockey team | 2020 Tokyo Olympics | Women's hockey | finished top 3 in three rounds; missed one shot in final round and slipped to fourth |
| Aditi Ashok | 2020 Tokyo Olympics | Women's golf | Lost Bronze medal match to Great Britain |
| Arjun Babuta | 2024 Paris Olympics | Men's Shooting | Lost Bronze medal to Croatia's Miran Maricic |