So Near Yet So Far: India's 4th-place Olympic Heartbreaks

It's often said that finishing fourth in the Olympics is peak agony. If coming last carries the sting of embarrassment, securing the fourth place inflicts the pain of being so near yet so far, something that can either drive an athlete to future glory or leave them completely crushed. India's affair with near misses at sport's grandest stage has been a long-standing one, beginning way back in 1956. Here is a look at the instances when Indian athletes came close but ended at just that.

1956, Melbourne: Football

The Indian football team made the semifinals after beating hosts Australia 4-2 in the quarterfinals, with Neville D'Souza becoming the first Asian to score a hat-trick at the Games.

By giving his team the lead, Neville looked like doing an encore in the last-four clash against Yugoslavia. But the Yugoslavians came back strongly in the second half to seal the contest in their favour.

In the bronze medal classification match, India lost to Bulgaria 0-3, drawing to a close an eventful few days which the great P K Banerjee would often reminisce with a hint of understandable anguish.

1960, Rome: Athletics

The legendary Milkha Singh missed out on a bronze by the narrowest of margins.

Competing in the 400m final and touted as a medal contender, the 'Flying Sikh' fell short by a mere 1/10th of a second after slowing down to steal a glance at his fellow competitors, an error that he would regret for the rest of his life.

This would go down as his worst memory after losing his parents in the aftermath of the partition.

Milkha almost gave up the sport after this loss and it required a lot of persuasion for him to hit the track again and win two gold medals in the 1962 Asian Games.

1980, Moscow: Women's Hockey

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