What Cost Aditi Ashok A Medal at Tokyo Olympics? Reveals Former India No. 1 Golfer Indrajit Bhalotia

New Delhi: Aditi Ashok was on the cusp of making history for India when she came tantalisingly close to winning an Olympic medal at the Tokyo Games but as luck had it, her campaign saw a heartbreaking end with her finishing fourth in the Olympic Games’ golf competition after carding a three-under 68 in the weather-hit final round in Tokyo a week back.

The 23-year-old Bengalurean ended two strokes off the pace with a total of 15-under 269. Aditi finished 41st in the 2016 Rio Olympics and given the fact that nobody gave her a chance for a spot on the podium, a fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Games is an achievement in itself that will go a long way in inspiring the younger generation to take up golf professionally.

Having started the fourth round, placed second there was every chance of Aditi finishing in the top three but according to former No. 1 golfer Indrajit Bhalotia, her distance had cost her a medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

“What cost her was the distance because 40 yards shot of your other competitors or 30 yards shot of your other competitors makes it virtually impossible for you to compete and it is not like your competitors are World No. 150 or 120,” said Bhalotia in an exclusive chat with india.com.

“You are playing against the World No. 1, you are playing against the top 30 players in the world, so they anyway have an advantage over you and on top of that if you have the distance, an advantage of such a huge amount, the putting is going to under pressure throughout and that is exactly what happened,” added the former No. 1 golfer.

“If she had hit the ball another 15 yards longer she probably would have won the gold by five shots or six shots. So that’s how good she was around the greens but the tee shot was something that did her in,” according to one of India’s top pro golfers in the 1990s.

The two bogeys pulled Aditi back who was in medal contention for a major part of the final day while New Zealand’s Lydia Ko surged ahead with a sensational nine birdies against just three dropped shots in her final round.