Olympics: India's fourth-place finishes at the Summer Games

A week of the 2024 Paris Olympics have gone by, and we have witnessed several heartbreaking fourth place finishes in this edition already. Having said that, on certain occasions, finishing fourth in an event at the Olympics can be more heartbreaking than finishing last at an event.

Over the years, several Indian athletes have endured fourth place finishes at the Olympics. Wrestler Randhir Shinde was the first Indian to have endured that fate when he lost the bronze medal playoff to Great Britain’s Philip Bernand in the men’s featherweight freestyle category at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. PT Usha (1984), Joydeep Karmakar (2012) and Abhinav Bindra (2016) are among the big names to have missed out on a medal in past editions of the Games.

It is to be noted that Abhinav Bindra did win a historic gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the men’s 10m air rifle event.

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The ongoing Paris Olympics witnessed six instances of Indians missing out on the medal podium. Shooter Arjun Babuta finished fourth in the men’s 10m air rifle competition. Archers Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat failed to win bronze in the mixed team event after losing to USA in the bronze medal match. And shooter Manu Bhaker, who has two bronze medals in Paris to her name, missed out on winning a medal at the women’s 25m pistol event.

Let’s now take a look at the complete list of Indian athletes who finished fourth in past editions of the Olympics:

1920 Antwerp Olympics

Randhir Shinde —Men’s 54 kg freestyle wrestling

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1952 Helsinki Olympics

Keshav Mangave —Men’s 62 kg freestyle wrestling

1956 Melbourne Olympics

India men’s football team

1960 Rome Olympics

Milkha Singh —Men’s 400m athletics

1972 Rome Olympics

Prem Nath — Men’s 57 kg freestyle wrestling

Sudesh Kumar — Men’s 52 kg freestyle wrestling

1984 Los Angeles Olympics

PT Usha —Women’s 400m hurdles

2004 Athens Olympics

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi —Men’s doubles in tennis

Kunjarani Devi —Women’s 48 kg weightlifting

2012 London Olympics

Joydeep Karmakar — Men’s 50m rifle prone

2016 Rio Olympics

Abhinav Bindra — Men’s 10m air rifle

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna — Mixed doubles in tennis

Dipa Karmakar — Women’ vault n gymnastics

2020 Tokyo Olympics

Aditi Ashok — Women’s golf competition

India women’s hockey team

Deepak Punia — Men’s 86 kg freestyle wrestling

2024 Paris Olympics

Arjun Babuta —Men’s 10m air rifle shooting

Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat — Mixed team event in archery

Manu Bhaker — 25m women’s pistol

Lakshya Sen lost the bronze medal men’s singles badminton match to Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia with score of 21-13, 16-21, 11-21.

Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka lost 43-44 against Jiang Yiting and Lyu Jianlin of China in the skeet mixed team bronze medal match.

In weightlifting, Mirabai Chanu, who lifted 199 kg in women’s 49 kg category, missed out on a medal by just 1 kg after finishing fourth.