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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.

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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:

AthleteOlympics YearEventReason
Randhir Shinde1920 Antwerp OlympicsMen's 54kg freestyle wrestlingLost in bronze medal playoff round
Keshav Mangave1952 Helsinki OlympicsMen's 62kg freestyle wrestlingLost in the final round
Indian football team1956 Melbourne OlympicsMen's FootballLost to Yugoslavia in semis & Bulgaria in bronze medal match
Milkha Singh1960 Rome OlympicsMen's 400mMissed bronze by 0.1 seconds
Prem Nath1972 Munich OlympicsMen's 57kg freestyle wrestlingLost in the seventh round
Sudesh Kumar1972 Munich OlympicsMen's 52kg freestyle wrestlingLost due to 7 penalty points
Women's hockey team1980 Moscow OlympicsWomen's hockeyLost to Soviet Union
PT Usha1984 Los Angeles OlympicsWomen's 400m hurdlesFinished race in 55.42 seconds; lost by 0.01 seconds (55.41 for bronze)
Rajinder Singh1984 Los Angeles OlympicsMen's 74kg freestyle wrestlingLoss in final round
Gurcharan Singh2000 Sydney OlympicsHeavyweight boxingControversial decision
Leander Paes & Mahesh Bhupathi2004 Athens OlympicsMen's Tennis doublesBeat Federer's Switzerland; but lost bronze medal match
Kunjarani Devi2004 Athens OlympicsWomen's 48kg weightliftingLifted 190kg; lost bronze medal to a 200kg total lift
Joydeep Karmakar2012 London OlympicsMen's 50m rifle prone shootingMissed by 0.9 points (699.1 vs 700.0)
Abhinav Bhindra2016 Rio OlympicsMen's 10m air rifle shootingLost by 0.5 points (10 vs 10.5)
Sania Mirza & Rohan Bopanna2016 Rio OlympicsMixed doubles tennisLost in semifinals
Dipa Karmakar2016 Rio OlympicsWomen's vault gymnasticsMissed bronze by 0.15 points
Women's hockey team2020 Tokyo OlympicsWomen's hockeyfinished top 3 in three rounds; missed one shot in final round and slipped to fourth
Aditi Ashok2020 Tokyo OlympicsWomen's golfLost Bronze medal match to Great Britain
Arjun Babuta2024 Paris OlympicsMen's ShootingLost Bronze medal to Croatia's Miran Maricic

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Author(s)
Saino Zachariah Photo

Saino Zachariah is a content producer for The Sporting News' India edition.