A new era has opened up for hockey, the National Sport of India. After a four decade long drought of Olympic medals, the men’s team returns from Tokyo with a Bronze and the women’s team with a fourth place finish that is their best ever, to boost the sagging fortunes of the game in the country where it once prospered. After having almost forgotten the game’s glorious past, in the last few days a billion people hoped that the results of the matches could have been better. And in the history of the Olympic Games this was the first time that the Indian men and women were playing for a bronze in hockey which the men ultimately won. Was it expected before the Games started? It was hoped for, expected perhaps not.
This resurgence in the game at which India once excelled and has eight Olympic gold medals to prove its prowess at it on the field, brings good tidings to the sport in the country. The men’s team entered an Olympic semi final after 49 years, the women for the first time. The last medal India won was in Moscow in 1980, in a Games that a large number of countries had boycotted and just six teams participated in hockey with the top two teams playing in the final. There was no semi-final that year. That victory can’t be compared to the current Olympics where India squared off against some of the best hockey playing countries in the world. In the semi-final it lost to the world champions, who also took home the Gold in the Games. For the Bronze it outplayed Germany that is another hockey powerhouse. For a country that was starved of a hockey win, this Olympics medallion is glittering as bright as the gold.
The medals at Tokyo therefore herald a change for the National sport that has been eclipsed by cricket since that first cricket World Cup win of 1983. Hockey dropped down in popularity and there was a time when the game was struggling to retain its place among the favourite sports in India. But there has now been a revival, which indicates a change in the mood of the people. The country can’t expect for a repeat of that record six successive Olympic Gold medals, it can expect that the hockey turfs in the country will now see more action in the coming months and years, as the Olympic medals rekindle an interest in the game that was ebbing. Not to forget that India will be hosting the hockey World Cup next year. It hosted the previous one too, both at Odisha, which incidentally is the main sponsor of the hockey teams.
Three years from now the world will meet again in Paris for another Olympics. Indian hockey has to prepare for that meet beginning today. The Bronze of Tokyo that the men returned with will have to shine brighter to a golden hue in the summer sun of Paris, and the women must get a medal of their own. It can happen, but only if the administrators of the game set their sights on another podium finish but this time aim for the top spot. Victory can’t come easily, but these two teams have proved to the country that they have it in them to go for victory. Many of those in the team are young and will possibly be still playing the game three years from now. That hunger for a medal has been created in them. It needs to be kept alive.
