Though India has been a back-marker at the Olympics, it has had some fine moments at the Games, especially in tennis, shooting and wrestling. Kamesh Srinivasan throws light on the Indian Olympians who narrowly missed a medal.
The Olympic Games is not only about the glory of winning medals on the biggest stage in sports, it is also about the heart-breaking and gut-wrenching moments that get frozen in time.
Apart from hockey, India’s performance at the quadrennial event has been depressing. But the nation, no doubt, has had some impressive moments at the Games when its athletes came within sniffing distance of medals only to falter in the end. There have also been moments when the fight was as much about showing courage in the face of adversity as winning a medal.
Who can forget the performance of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in the match for the bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where they played their heart out before losing 6-7 (5), 6-4, 14-16 to Ivan Ljubicic and Mario Ancic of Croatia? The fifth-seeded Indian pair was the only seeded team in the semifinals of the doubles event after having beaten some of the top names such as Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish of the US, Roger Federer and Yves Allegro of Switzerland and Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe without dropping a set.
However, before anyone could realise what was happening, the crack Indian combination was blown away by Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler of Germany 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals. The Indian duo, which was fancied to win the gold medal, had to then play for the bronze.
It was not the first time that India had lost a tennis medal. Ramesh Krishnan and Leander Paes had reached the doubles quarterfinals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and a victory was all that they needed to ensure a medal as the semifinalists then were awarded bronze. However, after stunning the top-seeded John Fitzgerald and Todd Woodbridge of Australia 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 in the second round, the Indian duo went down fighting to the Croatian pair, Goran Ivanisevic and Goran Prpic, 6-7 (3), 7-5, 4-6, 3-6 in the quarterfinals.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Indian boxer Gurcharan Singh was leading by a point in the quarterfinals of his heavyweight bout against Andriy Fedchuk of Ukraine. But as destiny would have it, he failed to evade a punch in the dying moments and the Ukrainian drew level 12-12.
In the calculation of points by the five judges to break the deadlock, Fedchuk prevailed 60-42, leaving the young Indian heart-broken, for, a semifinal entry was good enough to win a medal.
Later, coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu tried to cheer up Gurcharan by arranging felicitation functions and getting a car presented to him, but the boxer was unable to come to terms with the loss of an Olympic medal and left the country in pursuit of success in professional boxing.
“What happened in boxing made me sad, as Gurcharan Singh was so close to winning a medal. I felt sorry for him,” said Karnam Malleswari, who had won the bronze medal in weightlifting in Sydney.
India’s ace shooter Abhinav Bindra had made the final of the air rifle event at the 2004 Athens Olympics. He had the bronze medal in his grasp till four of the 10 shots had been completed, but quite mysteriously failed to win a medal despite being in the best of form. He finished seventh.
Later, it was learnt that Bindra was hampered by a flaw in the wooden flooring. He had been standing on a hollow region which meant that he could not get a steady posture. That he failed to win a medal was a real tragedy, but unlike Gurcharan, Abhinav recovered to become the world champion two years later.
World record holder Suma Shirur showed that she was a real fighter as she overcame a disastrous start when she lost three points after the first 13 of 40 shots in women’s air rifle in Athens.
She then dropped just one more point on way to the final with a score of 396, but had conceded too much ground to stay in the hunt for a medal in the climax.
In contrast, Anjali Bhagwat, who had dominated the world in air rifle for two years in the run-up to the Athens Olympics, failed to recover after shooting 96 out of 100 on the first card and finished 20th with a 393. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Anjali became the second Indian woman after P. T. Usha to make an Olympic final, thanks to a wild card. She had then shot a 394 in air rifle to finish eighth.
Indian football was at the height of its glory in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Of course, the team was lucky to enter the quarterfinals straightaway from a field of 11 owing to the last minute withdrawal of some of the leading countries including the defending champion Hungary.
India, nevertheless, capitalised on the situation by surprising Australia 4-2, thanks mainly to the heroics of Neville D’Souza who scored a hat-trick. Yet, India could not win a medal as it lost in the semifinals to Yugoslavia, the eventual runner-up, 4-1. And in the fight for the third place, India crashed to a 3-0 defeat to Bulgaria.
Over the years, some of India’s freestyle wrestlers had done the country proud though they could not win a medal just as K. D. Jadhav had done in Helsinki in 1952. At the Helsinki Games, K. D. Mangave came close to winning India’s second medal in wrestling but finished fourth in featherweight, behind Bayram Sit of Turkey (gold), Naser Guivehtchi of Iran (silver) and Josiah Henson of the US (bronze).
Another Indian wrestler Prem Nath also ended up fourth at the 1972 Munich Games in the bantamweight class, losing the bronze by an agonising 0.5 penalty points to Laslo Klinga of Hungary.
Jagmander Singh too finished fourth at the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the lightweight class after being eliminated in the fifth round. Rajender Singh (welterweight) came up with a better showing at the 1984 Los Angeles Games after finishing sixth in the previous Olympics in Moscow. He lost the bout for the bronze medal against Shaban Sejdiu of Yugoslavia 5-1.
Similarly, Sudesh Kumar finished fourth in 1972 after having placed sixth in 1968 in the flyweight section.
Rohtas Singh was fifth in bantamweight in 1984 and Mahabir Singh was fifth in Moscow in the light flyweight class. Madho Singh was joint fifth with two others in middleweight in 1960 in Rome and eighth in 1964 in Tokyo in the welterweight category.
There were many other notable finishers such as Subhash Verma, who was placed sixth at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in the heavyweight section, Bishamber Singh, placed sixth in 1964 and seventh in 1968 in the bantamweight class, Udey Chand, sixth in Mexico in lightweight and Sajjan Singh, sixth in Rome in 1960 in light heavyweight.
Kartar Singh Dhillon and Sunil Dutt were seventh in the heavyweight and light flyweight sections respectively in 1984, while Baban Daware was seventh in flyweight. Tarakeshwar Pandey and Ram Sarup finished eighth in bantamweight and featherweight sections respectively at the 1956 Olympics.
Pappu Yadav (light flyweight) had the sole distinction of making the top eight in Greco Roman at the Barcelona Games.
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