Paris Olympics are set to get underway on July 26 with a total of 117 athletes representing India in more than 15 sporting disciplines for two weeks or so. Since 1900, India have won a total of 35 medals at the Olympics with only two individuals winning gold while India's men's hockey team won gold eight times. However, there have been instances when Indian team or athletes missed the medal by a whisker ending at the fourth place. Here we bring you eight such instances when India missed out on a medal:
1. 1956 Olympics
Indian football team was close to winning a medal at Melbourne Olympics in 1956. They qualified for the semifinal by beating hosts Australia 4-2. In the last four clash, they locked horns against Yugoslavia and were leading in the first half as well thanks to the goal from Neville D'Souza. But Yugoslavia came back strongly in the second half to seal the game and defeated India. In the brone medal game against Bulgaria, India lost 3-0 and missed out on a medal despite playing their best football at the Olympics ever.
2. 1960 Olympics
Legendary Milkha Singh also went through the agony of missing out on a medal at the Rome Olympics in 1960. He was competing in 400m final and was a massive medal contender. But he missed out on bronze by 1/10th of a second. He regretted the error of having a glance at his competitors leading up to which he slowed down a bit and paid the price.
3. 1980 Olympics
India Women's hockey team participated in the Olympics for the first time at Moscow Games in 1980. Netherlands, Australia and Great Britain boycotted the Games over the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan and this provided them with a great chance of winning a medal in their first attempt. But they lost to USSR 1-3 in their final game to finish fourth behind Zimbabwe, Czechoslovakia and the hosts.
4. 1984 Olympics
If it was Milkha Singh in 1960, PT Usha endured a similar agony in 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She was competing in the 400m hurdles and missed the bronze by 1/100th of a second making it the closest ever miss for an Indian athlete in any competition. She finished just behind Romania's Christina Cojocaru who won the bronze.
5. 2004 Olympics
This time around it was Tennis that suffered and the celebrated duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi missed the podium finish in 2004 Athens Olympics. They lost to Nicholas Kiefer and Rainer Schuttler in straight sets 2-6, 3-6. In the bronze medal match, they fought hard in three sets before going down to Croatia's Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic 6-7, 6-4, 14-16.
In the same event, Kunjarani Devi also missed the medal finishing fourth behind bronze-medallist Thailand's Aree Wiratthaworn.
6. 2012 Olympics
Shooter Joydeep Karmakar was left heartbroken after finishing just 1.9 points behind the eventual bronze medal winner.
7. 2016 Olympics
Rio Olympics in 2016 witnessed Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian woman gymnast to compete at the Games. In her very first attempt, Dipa made it to the final of women's vault event but missed out on the bronze by just 0.150 points. Overall, she scored 15.066 points but her effort wasn't enough to take her to the podium.
Star shooter Abhinav Bindra also finished fourth at the same Games which also turned out to be his last appearance at the Games.
8. 2020 Olympics
2020 Tokyo Olympics happened in 2021 due to COVID breakout and this time, yet again, it was Indian Women's hockey team who missed the podium finish. They stunned three-time Olympic Champions Australia to make it to the semifinal but suffered 0-1 defeat to Argentina and then went down to Great Britain 3-4 to finish fourth. In the bronze medal match, India were leading 3-2 going into the final quarter but lost the match conceding two goals in the dying stages of the game.
At the same Olympics, golfer Aditi Ashok hogged the limelight for her excellent skills in the sport. But even she couldn't miss the agony of finishing fourth and missed out on a medal.
