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Aditi Ashok: The Indian girl who missed out on an Olympic medal in Tokyo has come a long way
Aditi had once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win an Olympic medal, not only to make herself immortalised in Indian sport but also to bring golf into mainstream.
Cut to the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. After just two medals in Rio the previous time in 2016 and the traumatic Covid-19 that necessitated the postponement of the Games, the Indians athletes were doing great in Japan and appeared on the way to the country’s biggest haul ever at the hallowed event.
In what was a teary-eyed moment for fans, the Indian hockey team had won an Olympic medal after a drought of more than four decades. Jubilations were in the air. However, if truth be told, despite the magnitude of the achievement, all eyes were on javelin superstar Neeraj Chopra who was to be in action a couple of days later. Around the time of the hockey celebrations the news that there was a female Indian golfer who could also win a medal started doing the rounds.
One had every reason to be hopeful. She had done something really out of the ordinary. In the first two rounds, she was tied for the second spot, and on Moving Day she finished a solo second, three strokes off the pace. No way was she going to miss out on a medal, if not gold, it could be a silver or bronze for that matter especially with her mother, a guiding force, acting as her looper. That's what most of us thought at the time.
In what could only be described as a heart-break, Aditi Ashok’s game came unstuck in the final round and as a result she had to content herself with a fourth-place finish. For a country that has only won a handful of medals in Olympic history, it was a heartbreak nobody was going to move on from real fast. Thankfully, Chopra’s historic gold medal on the same day made the pain first alleviate and then totally disappear in a matter of hours.
Aditi had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win an Olympic medal, not only to make herself immortalised in Indian sport but also to bring golf into the mainstream. She missed a great opportunity to stay in the consciousness of the country for a very, very long time. After such a miss, many lose their heart forever. Aditi though has proved she is not one of them.
On Sunday, the 25-year-old clinched the Ladies European Tour’s season-ending Andalucia Costa del Sol Open de Espana and took home the winner’s cut of €97,500. Believe it or not, she had won the season’s first event too. That was in early February and the venue was Vipingo Ridge in Kenya. In the lead-up to the Spanish event, however, it was not Aditi who was a matter of real interest from an Indian point of view. The spotlight was actually on another Indian Diksha Dagar who was in contention to win the LET’s overall Race to Costa del Sol. The 22-year-old Haryana-born girl, however, finished tied 7th in the event to miss out on something never achieved before by anyone in Indian women’s golf.
It will be fair to say that like Chopra’s gold in Tokyo, Aditi’s win in Spain has lessened the Diksha disappointment for fans. With the win, the girl from Bengaluru finished fourth in the Race to Costa del Sol, just behind Diksha who could have won the order of merit title with a victory in Spain.
“It started out slow, I was missing a lot of birdies for the first six to eight holes. I hit it close on seven, after that I felt like I still had a chance. Initially, it felt like I was two shots away the whole time. I’m glad it picked up on the back nine,” Aditi, who has a peculiar hobby of collecting lapel pins, said after the win at Real Club de Golf Las Brisas.
Aditi has had a fabulous season on the LPGA too, although her start wasn’t great. She missed the cut in her first three events. In the next 17 events, she missed the cut just once. After missing the cut in her first three events, she finished tied second at the JM Eagle LA Championship, her best finish on the LPGA Tour to date. Actually, she lost in a three-way play-off. Five times she has ended in the top 10 this year. Her triumph in Spain has truly been the icing on the cake. She has really come a long way from being someone who couldn’t really hold her own under pressure in that final round in Tokyo more than two years ago.
