Arjun Babuta competes in the 10m air rifle men’s final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 29, 2024, in Chateauroux, France. (AP Photo)
It’s a club that counts as its members the the likes of Olympics champion Abhinav Bindra, Olympics medallist Leander Paes and certified legends of Indian sport like PT Usha and Milkha Singh as members.
Yet, it’s also one club that no Indian athlete would want to be a part of: the club of fourth-place finishers at an Olympics.
It’s this club that rifle shooter Arjun Babuta joined on Monday after ending just outside the medal places in the men’s 10m air rifle event at the Châteauroux shooting range in France.
Babuta was consistently in the medals spots but with medal within sight, his final shot was a 9.5, that saw his campaign end empty-handed.
In qualification, Babuta had shot a total of 630.1 in the series of 60 shots to end seventh. Meanwhile, the other Indian in the 10m air rifle event, Sandeep Singh, had crashed out after ending in 12th place in qualification, with a score of 629.3 points.
Babuta had already endured heartbreak in the 10m air rifle mixed team event earlier in what is his debut Olympics, after he and his partner Ramita Jindal had finished sixth.
Full list of Indian athletes finishing fourth at Olympics
Babuta is the third shooter to feature in this list, besides Joydeep Karmakar and Olympic champion Bindra.
