Despite being in medal contention for the whole of the golf event, Aditi Ashok's spectacular performance in the Tokyo Olympics ended in disappointment as she finished just outside the top three slots. Aditi Ashok was on the verge of becoming India's first Olympic medalist in golf. Despite not winning a medal, Aditi's overall performance has amazed many. For a long time, she was in the top three, but she fell to fourth after the final two holes. Missing a birdie on the final hole lost her a finish on the podium.
She competed in her first Olympic Games in the 2016 Summer Olympics, finishing 41st. Aditi won the 2016 Hero Women's Indian Open with a 3-under-par 213 total, becoming the first Indian woman to win on the Ladies' European Tour. She won again two weeks later at the Qatar Ladies Open, finishing second on the Order of Merit for the season. She was named Rookie of the Year. She finished the Ladies European Tour with back-to-back second-place results in 2019. While the fourth-place finish was a hard pill to swallow, India has missed out on bronze on several occasions. But it’s a tragedy. You came close to making history, but not quite. You were almost, but not quite, good enough. Here, we take a look at the athletes who finished fourth in the Olympics.
Milkha Singh – 1960 Rome Olympics
Milkha Singh was the first Indian athlete to suffer the humiliation of finishing fourth. Milkha finished only milliseconds behind South African bronze medalist Malcolm Spence in the Men's 400m sprint at the 1960 Rome Olympics, despite being one of the pre-race medal hopefuls. In the three Olympic editions that Singh competed in, he did not win a medal. For nearly 40 years, Singh's fourth-place performance of 45.73 seconds was the Indian national record. Singh, on the other hand, has become a national sporting hero in India.
PT Usha – 1984 Los Angeles Olympics
24 years after Milkha Singh's performance, Indian fans were treated to a replay of it by PT Usha in Los Angeles in 1984. PT Usha, often known as the Payyoli Express, was a household figure during her sporting career. She missed bronze in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics by 1/100th of a second, the closest recorded miss for an Indian athlete in any sport. She did, however, have a stellar Asian record. Usha won four gold medals and one silver medal in track and field events at the 10th Asian Games in Seoul in 1986.
N. Kunjarani Devi – 2004 Athens Olympics
Not a familiar name as she didn’t finish fourth at the end of the event. She used to be a powerlifter, but she recognized an opportunity to fulfill her Olympic ambition and switched from powerlifting to weightlifting. It wasn't an easy choice. Kunjarani Devi was one of the event's dark horses in the 2004 Athens Olympics. She finished fifth in the Women's 48kg division with a total lift of 190 kg but was elevated to fourth after the fourth-placed lifter tested positive for doping. However, she has a stellar Commonwealth record. At the 2002 Commonwealth Games, she won three gold medals in the 48kg category: overall, clean and jerk, and snatch. At the age of 38, she successfully defended her Commonwealth Games title in Melbourne, Australia in 2006.
Leander Paes/Mahesh Bhupathi – 2004 Athens Olympics
Lee-Hesh, arguably India's best tennis doubles pair, has never won Olympic gold (though Leander won an individual bronze in 1996). The Indian combination came in fourth place after losing a lengthy men's doubles bronze-medal match to Croatia's Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic 6-7 6-4 14-16. The final score reflects how tense the match was, especially for those who watched it.
Joydeep Karmakar – 2012 London Olympics
At the London Olympics, Kolkata shooter Joydeep Karmakar placed fourth in rifle prone. He qualified for the Men's 50m Rifle Prone event in 7th place with a score of 595. However, it was his performance in the finals that stood out. He fired a 104.1 series to jump from 7th to 4th place. However, later the rules of the event changed. He would have received a Bronze medal if the rules had been the same as they are today, where qualification scores are not taken into account.
Abhinav Bindra – 2016 Rio Olympics
Abhinav Bindra is the first Indian to win the world and Olympic titles in the men's 10-meter air rifle event at the same time, having done so at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships. Bindra has also won nine Commonwealth Games medals and three Asian Games medals. He did not, however, win another medal in 2016, finishing fourth. He competed valiantly in the Men's 10m Air Rifle finals after qualifying seventh but lost in a 3rd-4th place shoot-off to Russia's Vladimir Maslennikov.
Sania Mirza/Rohan Bopanna – 2016 Rio Olympics
Prior to Rio 2016, Sania Mirza was one of the finest women's doubles players in the world, while Rohan Bopanna was one of India's best. Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram of the United States defeated the duo 6-2, 2-6, 3-10 in a tight match. The Czech duo then blew them out in the bronze medal match. Sania Mirza, a former world number one in doubles, has six Grand Slam wins to her name. With Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, Rohan Bopanna finished runner-up in doubles at the 2010 US Open. He and Gabriela Dabrowski won the 2017 French Open mixed-doubles title, making him the fourth Indian player to win a Grand Slam title.
Dipa Karmakar – 2016 Rio Olympics
The 2016 Rio Olympics was full of heartbreaks for India. Karmakar placed fourth overall with a score of 15.066 and lost out on the bronze medal by 0.150 points after reaching the final of the women's vault event. Her fourth-place finish in the Women's Vault event at the 2016 Rio Olympics did not earn her a medal, but it did win her a billion hearts, as the cliche goes. She was also the first Indian gymnast in 52 years to compete in the Olympics. When she won the vault event of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey, in July 2018, Karmakar became the first Indian gymnast to earn a gold medal at a worldwide event. She did not compete in the Olympics in Tokyo.
Aditi Ashok – 2020 Tokyo Olympics
The final name in our list, Aditi Ashok failed to finish on the podium by just one shot. Aditi placed fourth overall after four rounds in the women's individual stroke play event with a score of 269 points. Aditi finished 15 under par and required a birdie on the 72nd hole to force a bronze medal playoff with Lydia Ko, but it was not to be, as Ko carded a par on the 18th hole, forcing a silver medal playoff. Aditi Ashok has put Indian golf on the world map, from being the first female golfer to represent India in the Olympics in 2016, when she was also the youngest and ended 41st, to a historic finish five years later in Tokyo.
