India’s quest for medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics are seeing a pattern. Top medal contenders, though performing well in the finals, narrowly missed the bronze. India can raise a toast, however, to 22-year-old gymnast Dipa Karmakar who finished fourth in the vault event. As she has certainly popularized the sport among the young generations. India’s tennis campaign at the Rio Olympic Games also ended in dejection as Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna lost to the Czech in the bronze medal Play-off. Abhinav Bindra too came fourth after just narrowly missing out the bronze.

The Indian athletes have come so close to opening the medal tally but still remain very far from achieving it.

Bindra came closest to medal

Abhinav Bindra exited his last Olympics by finishing fourth in the final of the men’s 10m air rifle event. He missed out on a bronze medal by just 0.1 points.

Ever since his gold medal finish in 2008 Beijing Olympics, he has raised a billion expectations each time he stands behind the rifle in an event. Missing by a margin of only 0.1 point is as painful for the thirty-three year old as much it is to the people of India who have religiously backed him and the other athletes.

Having entered the final with a stunning recovery in the qualification round. Bindra held his composure – honed over years of zen-like focus and training – to move up the table and into the top three. However, just towards the end he fell back to fourth and then ended up short of claiming bronze. Bindra did his level best shooting a perfect 10 in his last shot, but apparently even that was not enough for him to open the medal tally for the country.

Mirza-Bopanna miss bronze

India’s search for a medal at the Olympics Tennis event failed after the defeat in the mixed doubles. Mirza-Bopanna lost to the Czech Republic’s Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek in the bronze medal play-off match. After a heart-breaking loss to the American pair of Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram in the semi-finals, the best that Mirza-Bopanna could have hoped for was a bronze medal. The Indian pair’s strong start in the competition raised hopes for a medal in Tennis. Mirza-Bopanna pair had a better showing against the Americans in the semi’s taking one set.

But in the all important play-off the duo seemed to have been shut down by the brilliance of the Czech pair.

Stepanek was a class apart in the contest as the Czech unleashed his powerful strokes, constructed the rallies and finished points with his superlative display. The Czechs sprayed the winners all over, catching the Indians by surprise, giving them no breathing space. 43-year-old Paes, who has now appeared in seven Olympics, now remains the only Indian tennis player to have won a medal in the biggest sporting extravaganza. He had won a singles bronze at 1996 Atlanta Games.

Dipa Karmakar won hearts but not the medal

Dipa Karmakar, the wonder girl of India, ended up her journey with the fourth place in her debut Olympics. However, her performance and achievements will always be remembered as one of the best and striking events to have happened in India’s sports history.

This was the first time that a woman represented India in the gymnastic event at the Olympics. The girl from Tripura scored higher points than 7-time world Olympic participant, Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan. Dipa performed sixth which saw her move to second place with average score of 15.066 (14.866 and 15.266 respectively). Only two more contestants were left. She was on the cusp of winning an Olympic medal on her debut.

However, Russia’s Maria Paseka scored 15.253 to go to top right after and USA’s Simone Biles  scored 15.966, hitting their vaults with utmost perfection. And Dipa slipped down the list.

Performing the highest difficulty level vault Dipa was no short of confidence. But it was her first vault where she lacked the points. It was also the first time when the Indian gymnast did not perform the produnova as her first vault. She eventually fell short by a narrow margin of 0.19 points. To go where no Indian had gone before is a story in itself, and no one can begrudge Dipa her result.

The 2016 Rio Olympics is proving a bit of jinx with some major medal contenders finishing fourth and that too narrowly missing out on the bronze medal. Hopefully, with a few more events to go, the largest Indian contingent at the games will not return empty-handed.

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