 "2024 Paris Olympics: The summer of near-misses for Indian contingent")
The 2024 Paris Olympics unfolded in a harsh pattern for the Indian contingent, marked by several agonizingly close yet ultimately unfulfilled moments. These athletes, who missed out on podium finishes by the narrowest of margins, are now left to reflect on what could have been, haunted by those missed opportunities.
Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification from women’s 50kg freestyle wrestling gold medal bout to Arjun Baubuta’s 9.9 shot in men’s air rifle 10m event finals in the shooting are just a couple of examples of India’s long list of athletes who will return from Paris with a heavy weight to carry around for a long, long time.
Interestingly, while there are athletes who were just victims of the cruel turn of fate, there are also athletes who have no one to blame but themselves for losing their nerves and dropping what could be their career-defining moment. Here we have the list of all those Indian athletes who failed to capture a podium finish at the last possible minute.
Chirag and Satwik
The case of the badminton duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty cannot actually be called a close miss but a classic case of losing focus on the deciding moment. The duo was favourites to win a podium finish in the men’s doubles badminton event, and they exactly played all their group matches, securing their place in the quarterfinals. They even started their quarterfinal on a high after winning the first game by 21-13. However, this was the moment they lost focus and started to commit back-to-back unforced errors, giving their opponents Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia a chance to make a comeback, which they fully capitalised on and won the next two games to knock Satwik and Chirag out of medal contention.
Nisha Dahiya
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Wrestler Nisha Dahiya started India’s wrestling campaign at the 2024 Paris Olympics and won her way into the quarterfinals of the women’s 68kg freestyle wrestling event. Nisha was even leading her quarterfinal bout by 8-1 with less than 60 seconds left on the clock. She suffered two quick injuries in her right-hand fingers and arm in the dying seconds, which allowed her opponent to capitalise on the distressed Indian and pick a 10-8 win, shattering Nisha’s dream of an Olympic medal.
Dhiraj Bommadevara and Ankita Bhakat
Indian mixed archery team of Dhiraj and Ankita were on the verge of creating history by winning India’s first medal in archery at the Olympics after they were scheduled to play the bronze medal match against USA’s Braddy Ellison and Casey Khaufold. However, the Indians lost the match by 2-6 and ended up in the 4th overall spot in the event.
Ananatjeet Singh Naruka and Maheshwari Chauhan
Anant and Maheshwari qualified for the shooting skeet mixed team event bronze medal match and almost gave India their fourth medal in shooting at the 2024 Olympics. However, the missed shots in earlier stages of the match came back to haunt them, and they ended up losing the match by just a single point to the Chinese pair of Yiting Jiang and Jialin Lyu and settling down for the fourth spot.
Arjun Babuta
Indian shooter Arjun Babuta was yet another victim of cruel fate at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Babauta missed the podium finish after finishing in fourth position in the men’s 10m air rifle event with his final score of 208.4 in the finals, which was only 1.4 less than third-placed Croatia’s Miran Maricis’s 209.4 at the time of Arjun’s elimination.
Manu Bhaker
Manu Bhaker’s name in this might come as a surprise for everyone. However, the shooter who created history by winning two bronze medals in Paris missed the chance to win her third podium finish in 2024 by the barest of margins. Manu finished fourth in the women’s 25m pistol rapid-fire event after losing the third place shootout to Hungary’s Major Veronika, giving the Indian team another so-close yet so-far moment in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lakshya Sen
Indian star shuttler Lakshya Sen, who became the first Indian male badminton player to feature in the Olympics semifinals, was forced to settle down with fourth position finish in men’s singles badminton competition. Lakshya, after winning the first game in his bronze medal match against Malaysia’s Lee Jia Zii, went on to lose the next two games and eventually lost a chance at the podium.
Nishant Dev
Indian boxer Nishant Dev's loss in the quarterfinals of the men’s 71kg category against Mexico’s Marco Verde was a hot top of the discussion. Nishant won the first round and looked good in the next two rounds. However, the officials felt otherwise and gave Verde the win in the last two rounds, resulting in Nishant’s hopes of ensuring at least a bronze medal shattered.
Mirabai Chanu
One of the biggest shocks of the 2024 Paris Olympics came on August 8, when star weightlifter Mirabai Chanu failed to win a medal in her second consecutive Olympics after winning silver at the 2024 Tokyo Olympics by just one kilogram. With the final score of 199 kg (88kg in snatch and 111kg in clean and jerk), Mirabai finished her 49kg women’s weightlifting event in fourth position.
Vinesh Phogat
The case of Vinesh Phogat will go down as the biggest heartbreak in Indian sports history. Vinesh, after becoming the first female wrestler to reach the finals at the Olympics and assuring at least a silver medal for herself and India, was disqualified from her 50kg women’s freestyle gold medal bout after being found 100 grams over the permissible limit hours before her final bout. Despite all the efforts from Vinesh and the Indian team to get her under the weight limit, she failed during the weigh-in and lost a podium finish in her last Olympics. Vinesh announced her retirement from the sport a day later.