Are these history's greatest losers? 19 people who had glory snatched away from them

History may celebrate the winners, but what about those who came tantalisingly close to the top spot? Jonny Wilkes shines a light on 19 famous ‘almosts’

A photo collage featuring historical figures and athletes arranged around a red and white 1-2-3 winner's podium set against a yellow background.

Published: September 27, 2026 at 3:30 PM

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At the 2026 London Marathon, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe made history by becoming the first runner ever to finish the 26.2 miles in under two hours, breaking the tape with a time of 1:59:30. While the crowd cheered and the commentators tried to capture the significance of the moment, another runner, Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia, quietly passed the finish line too, and also under two hours. While still a remarkable achievement, it is doomed to be overshadowed by Sawe – and all for the sake of 11 seconds.

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Second place, the silver medal, the so-called ‘first loser’: it can be a heartbreaking position, to be so close and yet so far from the ultimate glory. (Before you feel too bad for Kejelcha, though, it is worth noting that this was his first-ever marathon, so imagine what he could accomplish with more training.)

Whether in the field of exploration, invention, politics or sport, history is replete with examples of close-but-no-cigar runners-up, although their names don’t fill as much space in the history books as the ones who pipped them. Here, we reveal the worst cases of second-place fever, from those who fell agonisingly short and missed out in a cloud of controversy to those who seemed destined to lose and set the unwanted records.

1. Robert Falcon Scott

Second to the South Pole

In 1910, the British explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott set out on his British Antarctic Expedition – often known as the Terra Nova expedition – with the goal of reaching the South Pole, something no human had done before.

On the way, however, he learned that he had a challenger in the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who navigated the Northwest Passage a few years earlier. Amundsen had actually intended to conquer the North Pole, but on hearing that someone else may have beaten him to it he turned his ship south instead.

Scott’s quest for glory turned to despair: by the time he reached the Pole on 17 January 1912, he found that Amundsen had already been there, more than a month previously, and he along with the four other men in his party would perish on the 800-mile return journey.

Black-and-white photograph of four polar explorers dressed in heavy hooded cold-weather gear standing in a vast, snow-covered landscape beside a small tent flying the Norwegian flag

Captain Scott and his fellow explorers arrive at Amundsen’s tent in the South Pole – a disappointing discovery for the expedition, which would end in tragedy | Credit: Getty Images

2. John Landy

Second to run a four-minute mile

On 6 May 1954, British medical student and Olympic athlete Roger Bannister achieved what was thought to be physically impossible. Described as “sport’s greatest goal”, he ran a mile in under four minutes. His name went into the history books, but his time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds lasted in the record books for just 46 days.

The Australian sensation John Landy shocked the crowd at a meet in Finland by setting a new time of 3 minutes 57.9 seconds. That August, the two men met on the track. Dubbed the ‘Miracle Mile’, it was a titanic duel with both men running under four minutes again, but it was Bannister who came first once again.

3. Elisha Gray

Second to invent the telephone

Elisha Gray was one of several people working on a device to transmit sounds telegraphically in the 1870s, but the American succeeded in coming up with a design for what would soon be known as the telephone. The only problem was that on the exact day he announced his intention to patent his invention, 14 February 1876, the Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell filed his own application at the US Patent Office. There the controversy began as an acrimonious legal battle ensued before Bell’s “instrument” came out on top.

Black-and-white vintage technical illustration showing Alexander Graham Bell’s liquid transmitter telephone system. On the right, a man speaks into a cone-shaped mouthpiece connected to a liquid transmitter, which connects via a dotted "LINE" to an earpiece receiver held to another man's ear on the left

A 1896 sketch outlines Elisha Gray’s plans for a telephone. After failing to get a patent for the invention, Gray would be overshadowed by Alexander Graham Bell | Credit: Getty Images

4. Alan Shepard

Second person in space

One of the Mercury Seven, the inaugural group of NASA astronauts, Alan Shepard was scheduled to be the first person in space. His flight on the Freedom 7 capsule had an initial launch date of March 1961, but it was postponed to May due to rigorous testing and safety checks.

The two-month delay allowed the Soviet Union to claim a major early victory in the Space Race by sneaking ahead of the United States and launching the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1 in April.

Following his own historic flight, Shepard would go on to walk on the Moon as commander of Apollo 14 in 1971, marking the moment with a first of his own by hitting two golf balls on the lunar surface.

5. Jack Nicklaus

Second in golf majors the most times

The American golfer’s reputation is unsurpassed: he won 18 majors between 1962 and 1986, putting him at the top of the pile in the history of the sport. What is more impressive, though, is that the Golden Bear’s record could have been even better if he had not come second in a major no less than 19 times. Five of these came in a playoff or by a single stroke.

Professional golfer Jack Nicklaus hitting a shot out of a sand bunker, spraying sand as the golf ball launches into the air against a smooth green backdrop

Golfing great Jack Nicklaus hits the ball out of the bunker during the US Masters, 1986. Alongside a very impressive record of big wins, Nicklaus also holds the title for coming second in majors the most number of times | Credit: Getty Images

6. Raymond Poulidor

'The Eternal Second' of the Tour de France

It did not take long from its inception in 1903 for the Tour de France to become the most prestigious cycling race in the world, where the greatest on two wheels competed for the famed yellow jersey.

To date, four men have won it five times, but unfortunately for Raymond Poulidor, two of those raced at the same time as him. Across his 14 appearances from 1962 to 1976, the French cyclist finished on the podium eight times without ever toppling the likes of compatriot Jacques Anquetil and Belgian Eddy Merckx.

For that, Poulidor, a hugely popular figure in the sport, earned the affectionate nickname of ‘The Eternal Second’.

7. Francis Drake

Second to circumnavigate the world

The Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan left Spain in 1519 on an expedition that would eventually complete the first circumnavigation of the world. While he gets the credit, he did not live to see Spain again – he was killed in the Philippines in 1521 – so it fell to Spanish navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano, with a crew of just 17 Europeans, to bring the expedition home.

It would be over half a century before another explorer, Francis Drake, replicated the feat, leaving Plymouth in 1577 and returning in 1580.

Historical engraving showing Queen Elizabeth I knighting Francis Drake aboard his ship, the Golden Hind. The Queen stands in an elaborate gown, tapping a sword onto the shoulder of a kneeling Drake, surrounded by courtiers, sailors, and rigging

A Victorian illustration depicts Queen Elizabeth I knighting Francis Drake in 1581. A renowned sea captain and navigator, Drake was the second person to circumnavigate the globe | Credit: Getty Images

8. Rosalind Franklin

Second to Watson and Crick

The 1953 discovery of the double helix structure of DNA changed science and medicine forever. It is attributed to two molecular biologists, American James Watson and Englishman Francis Crick, but another scientist made invaluable contributions to the breakthrough and has historically been overlooked.

The chemist Rosalind Franklin took an X-Ray diffraction image of DNA fibre, which was a breakthrough in revealing DNA’s helical structure. Photo 51, as it became known, was then shown to Watson and Crick – without Franklin’s knowledge – allowing them to further their own research.

Franklin died of cancer in 1958, before Watson, Crick and her colleague Maurice Wilkins collected the Nobel Prize. If she had lived, she may well have joined them.

9. Washington Generals

Second to the Harlem Globetrotters

The ultimate exhibition team – not just in basketball, but all sports – the Harlem Globetrotters have delighted crowds with their unmatched skills and antics for nearly 100 years. What would they be, however, without a rival team to humiliate?

That’s where the Washington Generals come in. Since 1952, the Generals have been the regular foil to the Globetrotters’ showboating, which means they’ve lost a lot. In fact, they have been on the wrong side of the scoreboard more than 17,000 times, and in return they have only won a handful of times and none since 1971.

A low-angle action photo of a Harlem Globetrotters player mid-air, leaping toward the basketball hoop to dunk a red, white, and blue ball while opposing players in yellow uniforms look on in a packed arena

Harlem Globetrotters player Ovie Dotson slam dunks the ball during a game against the Washington Generals. Involved in one of the greatest rivalries in sport, the Generals have lost to the Globetrotters more than 17,000 times | Credit: Getty Images

10. Netherlands football team

Second in the World Cup twice in a row

The Netherlands side of the 1970s is often described as the best football team never to win a FIFA World Cup. Not only was the captain one of the greatest to play the game, Johann Cruyff, but thanks to their manager Rinus Michels they had perfected a revolutionary style of play, known as ‘Total Football’.

By qualifying for the 1974 tournament, the Dutch appeared at a World Cup for the first time in 36 years and were favoured to lift the trophy. They conceded just one goal en route to the final, but lost to West Germany. The Netherlands returned four years later, without their talismanic captain, and again made it all the way only to lose again, this time to Argentina in extra time.

11. Citizen Kane

Second in the Oscars

To this day, Orson Welles’ debut feature film, Citizen Kane, regularly appears on, if not tops, the lists of greatest movies ever made. Yet the 1941 epic cannot count among its many accolades a certain golden statuette.

At the 1942 Oscars, Citizen Kane and Welles failed to win Best Picture and Best Director respectively, both losing out to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley. While highly regarded, the classic drama about a Welsh coal mining family drama hardly boasts the enduring impact of Welles’s magnum opus.

Black-and-white promotional photo from Citizen Kane featuring Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane standing with his hands behind his back, surrounded by massive stacks of tied newspapers covering the ground

Orson Welles stars as the eponymous character in Citizen Kane, 1941. Welles’s epic lost out at the Oscars the following year – but has gone down in history as one of the classics of cinema | Credit: Getty Images

12. Buzz Aldrin

Second to walk on the Moon

It is one of the most famous events in human history: 20 July 1969, Apollo 11 lands on the Moon, and the world watches as the first step is made with the words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And the astronaut who uttered that immortal line was Neil Armstrong. Yet it could have been Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin.

It had become custom in Nasa for a mission’s junior officer to be the first out of the capsule for spacewalks – which suggests Aldrin should have got the nod – but the decision was taken that Armstrong’s level-headed, ego-free demeanour was more fitting for the historic moment.

When Aldrin joined his mission commander a few moments later, he described what he saw with his own piece of poetry: “Magnificent desolation.”

13. Bertha von Suttner

Second woman to win a Nobel Prize

Marie Curie is celebrated around the world as a pioneer in physics and chemistry, and for breaking ground for female scientists. Her research on radiation secured her a Nobel Prize in 1903 – making her the first woman to be a Nobel laureate – and she followed that by winning another, in 1911, for discovering the elements radium and polonium.

Just two years after Curie’s first prize, the Austrian novelist Bertha von Suttner won her own, the Peace Prize for “her audacity to oppose the horrors of war”.

It would be 1935 before the next woman won a Nobel Prize in the sciences, Irène Joliot-Curie, Marie’s daughter.

Black-and-white portrait of Bertha von Suttner seated on a floral patterned sofa next to a small round table with a potted plant and papers, holding an open book in her lap

Bertha von Suttner was a renowned pacifist and writer. Winning the Nobel Prize only two years after Marie Curie, von Suttner gained praise for openly opposing war | Credit: Alamy

14. Alfred Russel Wallace

Second to come up with the theory of evolution

It is unfair to say the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was ‘second’ to develop the theory of evolution through natural selection, behind Charles Darwin. He came up with it independently, based on years travelling in the Amazon River basin and Malay Archipelago, and even wrote down his findings before Darwin published his masterpiece, On the Origin of Species (1859).

While that ensured Darwin’s title as father of evolutionary theory, Wallace never resented his situation and remained one of his compatriot’s most vocal supporters.

15. Buffalo Bills

Second in the Super Bowl four times in a row

While the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers have each won the Super Bowl, the biggest prize in American Football, six times, the Buffalo Bills hold the less-auspicious record of having the most consecutive appearances at the big game without bagging a single Vince Lombardi Trophy.

From 1991 to 1994, the star-studded Bills lost to the New York Giants – having missed a last-second field goal to win – the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) and the Dallas Cowboys twice. They have not been back to the Super Bowl since.

Close-up profile of Buffalo Bills running back Thurman Thomas wearing number 34, sitting on the sidelines with his head bowed and a red-gloved hand resting over his forehead in a moment of dejection or reflection

Buffalo Bills player Thurman Thomas sits on the bench during the Superbowl, 1994. That year, they would lose out on the trophy for the fourth time in a row | Credit: Getty Images

16. Al Gore

Second in the 2000 US presidential election

Never has an election for President of the United States been more contentious and contested as in 2000. The Republican candidate George W Bush, son of a former president, eventually claimed victory over the Democrat, Al Gore, but only after weeks of recounts and legal tussles.

Gore actually got more votes on election day, 7 November, but to win required securing a majority in the Electoral College, and it quickly became clear that this entirely depended on who won the state of Florida.

There, the race was extraordinarily close with just a few hundred ballots separating the two out of the millions cast. The matter went to the courts, culminating in the Supreme Court’s bitterly disputed decision in mid-December to stop further recounts in Florida, and so sealing the narrowest of winning margins for Bush.

17. Christopher Marlowe

Second to William Shakespeare

This English playwright and poet was the toast of Elizabethan London. No, not that one. Christopher Marlowe enjoyed a stellar few years thanks to plays like Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, and Doctor Faustus.

Then, on 30 May 1593, he was killed at the age of 29, apparently in a tavern brawl, although his death continues to be the subject of mystery, intrigue and conspiracy theories.

In the vacuum he left stepped one of his contemporaries, a man born the same year and who had been inspired by Marlowe’s works; the most famous dramatist of his, or indeed any, era, William Shakespeare.

A 1585 oil portrait traditionally believed to be playwright Christopher Marlowe, depicting a young man with wavy auburn hair, a light mustache, and a white collar over a slashed black doublet with gold buttons. Latin inscriptions appear in the upper-left corner

A portrait of Christopher Marlowe, who enjoyed fame as Elizabethan London’s playwright until his untimely death. In his stead, William Shakespeare would take the top spot | Credit: Alamy

18. Jimmy White

Second in the World Snooker Championship six times

Jimmy White had two nicknames, ‘The Whirlwind’ for his quick and attacking play, and ‘The People’s Champion’. The latter is an acknowledgement of the title that eluded the English star his whole career, the World Snooker Championship, the top prize in the sport.

He got so close by making the final six times between 1984 and 1994, including five years in a row, but always fell short. The two losses that proved especially painful came in 1992, when he let a commanding lead slip by losing 10 consecutive frames, and 1994, when he missed a simple black in the deciding frame. Both were to seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry.

19. The Australian army

Second to a mob of emus

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In November 1932, the Australian military – in truth, a handful of soldiers with machine guns and lots of ammunition – were dispatched to carry out a rather extreme form of animal control against the emu population. The flightless birds had become a pest to wheat farmers. By December, the army, who wasted bullets by killing less than 1,000 of the c20,000 emus, had no choice but to withdraw and admit defeat in the Great Emu War.

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