fall at the first hurdle

To fail to accomplish some task or goal at the very beginning of the attempt. John had his business plan all laid out, but he fell at the first hurdle when the bank refused to grant him a loan.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Swaran	-	Punjabi
Maddy	MAD-ee	English
Manya	-	Russian
Dhaval	-	Indian, Marathi, Gujarati
Marina	mah-REE-nah (Italian, Spanish, German, Russian), mə-REEN-ə (English)	Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, English, Greek, Russian, Uk
Hereward	-	Anglo-Saxon