The agony of an Olympic fourth-place finish

Bengaluru: Arjun Babuta exhaled, pain and regret stabbing him in the eye. 9.5. A rotten 9.5 at the damndest time. It was the lowest he’d shot all match. It had arrived on shot 20, when he could ill-afford it. The shot that decided if he gets to climb the podium or join the listicle of agonising fourth-place Olympic finishes.
The 25-year-old Indian 10m air rifle shooter in his first Olympics walked away from the firing lane with leaden feet. The ground beneath, molten lava. He had missed the bronze medal by 0.9, for a fourth-place finish. It’s the difference between wearing the prefix – Olympic medallist, for life, or being one of the guys who went to the Games.
Such is sport. Beautiful and brutal at once.
PT Usha famously missed the 400m hurdles bronze medal by 1/100th of a second at 1984 Los Angeles. At Rome 24 years earlier, Milkha Singh had missed out on the podium by 0.1 second (0.13 secs after it was amended to electronic timing) in the 400m final. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Dipa Karmakar had sports fans in India awake at midnight, putting their math skills and emotions through the wringer. Her vault 2: Difficulty: 7.00, Execution: 8.266, Prudunova: 15.266, cumulative score: 15.066. A fourth-place it was.
Agony of a medal missed, yes. But also all things uplifting. Dipa had made it to the grandest sporting stage of all despite her circumstance and warring federations, written a fresh chapter in Indian gymnastics and brought Produnova into our lives. “The other three (one of them was Simone Biles) were better than me,” Dipa smiled. “I’ll definitely go for a medal in 2020.”
The Agartala gymnast hasn’t been able to qualify for an Olympics since. Such is sport.
In India, an Olympic medal can change your life. A windfall of cash awards, endorsements, roads and training halls being named after you and what have you. Only 21 Indian athletes have won individual Olympic medals so far. Boxer Nikhat Zareen’s dream to compete in an Olympics was born when Mary Kom won bronze at 2012 London. “People started seeing her as a role model,” she told HT,
“That’s when I felt, yaar kaash mujhe bhi koi aise apna role model maane, mujhe bhi success mile life mein, main bhi famous banu.” (I wish I’m also looked at as a role model, I too want success and fame).
Abhinav Bindra is perhaps a rare Indian athlete who’s seen both – an individual Olympic gold and a fourth-place finish. The fourth place came in what was his fifth and final Games appearance in Rio. He had fallen 0.1 points short of a podium finish.
“Somebody had to come fourth and it’s me,” Bindra said after. He was 33 and in his fifth Olympics then.
Joydeep Karmakar recalls the moment he saw his name placed fourth on the screen. He punched the shooting mat, kissed his rifle and walked away.
It was only during the medal ceremony for the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol soon after that Karmakar realised what he’d missed. India’s Vijay Kumar was on the podium with a silver medal. “I was there in the hall when the medals were being given out. That’s when it hit me hard. I broke down.”
“Being fourth can be the loneliest and the cruellest. Even a sixth or seventh place might not feel as bad. But I don’t regret the fight I put up,” says the former 50m rifle prone shooter about his 2012 London finish.
Karmakar reckons his life may have been somewhat different had he won an Olympic medal. “There are huge financial rewards that come with a medal in our country. And at that point of my life, I could have done with that kind of stability perhaps, I was slightly senior at 33 then. But I haven’t sat up nights thinking and wishing I’d won. I learnt to make peace with it. Every time I felt miserable, I asked myself who do I go back to? I never doubted the answer. Shooting. Of course, my wife too,” he laughs. “But shooting is my whole life. It’s taught me everything I know.”
Babuta might want to take heart.
On Sunday night, roughly 300 kilometres from the Chateauroux shooting centre, Max Litchfield climbed out of the pool after his 400m individual medley race, wiped and gutted. He’d broken his own British record with a 4:08:85 timing, which was 0.19 seconds off the bronze. Litchfield had finished fourth. For the third Olympics in a row. Rio, Tokyo, Paris.
“You have to be the unluckiest swimmer ever?” the 29-year-old was asked as he blinked back tears.
“I don’t really know what to say, it’s my best time, it’s still a British record. It’s hard, I gave it my everything… I’ve got to be proud, fourth place in three Olympics on the trot, there ain’t many people who can say that. It’s the wrong side of it, but that’s sport, that’s life.”