Is there anything worse than coming fourth?

At any major sporting event where medals are given out to the top three athletes, one commentator will always say that "...there's nothing worse than coming fourth" or even worse, "...nobody remembers the athlete who comes fourth".

Imagine the scene, a young athlete from the East End of London, who as a 13 year old took up athletics seriously having been inspired by the Olympics being won by London in 2012; devotes every waking minute to training and gradually improves his times over the years from a position of obscurity to one of medal contention. His event is the 400 metres, and, in 2012 in the London Olympics final, (which he reached after setting a lifetime best time in the semis), he misses a bronze medal by 1/100th second, although he sets a British, European & Commonwealth record in so doing. Nothing worse? Won't be remembered? Do me a favour.

For a start, there's a chance that he'll eventually be awarded a medal as the odds on one of the first 3 failing a drugs test are reasonably high; (for future reference this was the week that Justin Gatlin received an 8 year ban for failing a second drugs test!) Secondly the list of "...other worse things in the world" is too long to mention, and thirdly his performance would make him fourth best in the world and faster than any British, European or Commonwealth athlete had ever run that event!!!

Fourth in the world, I wouldn't mind coming fourth in my house, which as one of the offspring (namely he that shall be named Moog) flew the nest 2 years ago, only actually consists of 3 people!

So this led me to think of some of my achievements throughout my life to date: -

August 2006 - 226,775th after the first week of the Telegraph Fantasy
Football League.

November 2000 - 17,601st in the New York Marathon - (I'm not
sure that all those in front of me were drugs tested, so a first three position
doesn't look very likely!)

April 1997 - 21,619th in the London Marathon - (although I did have to
wait a few minutes whilst my running partner, young Nia (well she was relatively
young then) took a pit stop in a "powder room" at 20 miles, that may have cost us
a first three position, but for the fact that the winning athlete had already
had had his feet up for over 2 hours at that point.

July 1972 - 5th out of 4 in the Jersey Barra Hotel Fancy Dress competition. The
conversation leading up to this event had included the sentences "...But I've
not got a costume to wear" "...the hotel has a box with fancy dress costumes in
it, have a look in there" and the defining "...no there was only a Kermit the
Frog costume left in the box!". Well, as I said Kermit and I came
fifth.

September 1966 - Failed to finish in the Blackpool Butlins Egg &
Spoon race. This failure was actually due to a technicality, as the rules had
not been properly explained to me. I had actually been fairly and squarely in
the lead in the race until my egg fell off my spoon, and I didn't realise you
could put it back on. So I walked off the track, muttering about the "cheat" who
had won by using his hands. (As some form of consolation I think my mum and dad bought me a cowboy outfit - with a "real" cap firing gun - to wear for the rest
of the week. (Presumably the shop didn't sell Kermit outfits, or maybe Kermit
hadn't been "born" in 1966!)

So in chronological order, I have a track record of DNF, 5th, 21,619th, 17,601st & 226,775th. Which is not what the statisticians would describe as "improving".

Who says there's nothing worse than coming fourth?