Milkha Singh, PT Usha, Abhinav Bindra, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, and so many more. They belong to a long, unenviable list of elite Indian athletes who finished fourth in their respective events at the Olympic Games.
It is a list of those who held the hope of taking a step atop the Olympic pedestal, only to be an agonising step too short.
On Monday, Arjun Babuta’s name was added to this list. Naturally, he was not happy about it. But his name, nonetheless, is now a part of the near-miss Olympic folklore.
Competing at in the men’s 10m air rifle final at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Babuta finished fourth.
Once just 0.1 behind the eventual gold medallist Sheng Lihao, Babuta fell down the pecking order rapidly at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre.
A 10.1 with his 18th shot put him at risk. But it was the 9.5 with his 20th and final shot – when he required a 10.5 to topple Sweden’s Victor Lindgren – that proved to be the knockout blow.
There was a moment when he betrayed that dismay when the shot was registered. But as he walked back to his coach, with cameras focused firmly on him, he gave a wry smile and thumbs up as he trudged back to the sitting area. He held his composure with all his strength for as long as possible, only letting loose once he was in the company of his teammates and coaches.
“Whenever I met anyone from the Indian contingent – support staff or coaches or other shooters – I just cried,” said Babuta in a media interaction, organised by Sports Authority of India, after the final. “I could not stop my tears and I think it was important, I needed to let it flow.”
The Paris Games had been a long time coming for Babuta. He had first been selected for the Indian senior team back in 2018 when he was still 19.
A career threatening back injury that same year, however, meant what was supposed to be his breakthrough year ended in tatters. His form plummeted and he missed out on a spot at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Rifle shooting is a sport which puts enormous load on an athlete’s lower back. Such was the pain, that Babuta could not even hold a rifle properly.
His return was not smooth either, with a number of competitors from the country emerging in the discipline. He was not in the team that competed at the delayed Asian Games in Hangzhou last year. But in the national trials – a gruelling four-part selection series for the Paris Games in April and May – he was ready to make the push back to the top tier of the sport.
“I was always struggling to get into top three last year,” Babuta had told Scroll before heading to Paris. “Even after scoring 632 average [in the qualification round], I was always the third or fourth-ranked shooter. That helped me to get better at my game and push my limits.”
The constant need to push his limits, be it due to injury or domestic competition is what came to Babuta’s aid in Chateauroux.
He had missed out on qualifying for the 10m air rifle mixed team medal match, with partner Ramita Jindal, by a solitary point on Saturday. He had shot a brilliant 106.2 in the second series, but came up with a poor 103.9 as India finished sixth.
“He [Babuta] took a little pause [after second series] and then he could never get back with the same intensity,” Indian chief rifle coach Suma Shirur told Scroll from Chateauroux .
“It really hurt Arjun the most. He almost had tears. And it took a while until he could get over it.”
Babuta returned stronger and determined, shooting 630.1 to qualify for the individual men’s 10m air rifle final a day later.
He nearly had a dream run in the final as well. Babuta, though, is ready to take it in his stride.
“If it was supposed to happen, it would have happened,” he said. “I gave my 100% today [in the final]. I’ll keep on doing it… today was just not my day.”
Bindra’s – India’s first individual gold medallist at the Olympics – presence at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre also seemed to have helped him handle the disappointment better.
“It was good to know he [Bindra] has hopes from me,” Babuta said, with a smile. “He told me he could relate with me because he also finished fourth [at the Rio Olympics in 2016].
“I can cry all I want about it today, but it is important for me to move on.”
The Olympics of 2024 are over for Babuta. But he has already started looking forward towards what is next.