From gloom to glory!

Indiarsquos menrsquos hockey captain Manpreet Singh canrsquot stop smiling The joy of fulfilling the dreams of a billionplus population with an Olympic medal in the national sport after a gap of 41 years continues to overwhelm him ldquoThis medal is a symbol of happiness Wherever I go it brings a satisfying smile on peoplersquos faces regardless of age gender caste or creedrdquo the Red Bull athlete tells midday on his first visit to Mumbai since the bronze medalwinning Tokyo Olympics feat on MondayIn an interview Manpreet 29 elaborates on the topsyturvy Tokyo ride and reveals how one dark evening after the 17 hammering against Australia lit up Indian hockeyrsquos fortunesEdited excerpts from the interviewIndia got most of its video referrals right in Tokyo How much of a role did this play in the teamrsquos successThe video referrals were very crucial especially in the first game against Argentina then reigning Olympic champions You get only one referral per game and we got over half a dozen referrals right there That match stretched to nearly two hours but that getting the referrals right gave us confidence and played a major role in helping us beat Argentina Tell us about the teamrsquos morale after the big defeat to Australia in the league phaseWe were extremely disappointed because of the margin of that defeat I remember when we got back to the Games Village it felt like a dark evening We felt like a team that was there only to participate But later when we sat together and analysed the match videos with coach Graham Reid we realised that we had not played as badly as the scoreline suggested Itrsquos just that certain things didnrsquot go our way while fortunes favoured the Australians For example in one of our penalty corner attempts a shot by Bob Rupinderpal Singh beat the entire Australian defence but somehow the ball failed to enter their goal That match was like a harsh wakeup like one tight slap that shook us We worked doubly hard in the matches thereafterDoes this Olympic bronze put India in a great position to win gold at next yearrsquos Asian GamesJust because we have won an Olympic medal we cannot take things for granted In fact we have to work harder now to maintain our high ranking in world hockey At the Olympics a lowlyranked team like South Africa shocked Germany so anything can happen in modern hockey Asian teams are no pushoversHow do you foresee the road map ahead for Indian hockeyWe have the Asian Games Hangzhou China and Commonwealth Games Birmingham England next year Then in 2023 we have the World Cup in Odisha and thatrsquos a stage where we want to prove ourselves in front of our home crowd And of course then at the 2024 Paris Olympicswe will be aiming for gold The young Indian forwardline missed a lot of scoring opportunities especially in onetoone situations with the opposition goalkeepers How do you explain thisFirstly everyone said that we have 10 Olympic debutants so itrsquos an inexperienced team but I disagree This time the Olympics happened after five years due to the COVID19 delay and across the last three years all our players had gained enough experience on the international level Secondly even if our forwards missed a few scoring opportunities they set up a lot of penalty corners for us which were converted by Bob and Harmanpreet SinghFinally on the personal front how will things change for you now that you have achieved your dream of an Olympic medal My wife Illi has been living and working in Malaysia so we have been apart since our marriage in December 2020 In fact Irsquove yet to meet her and show her this medal We will be meeting soon but the plan is to get her to India and hopefully start a business which she can get involved in It will be nice for us to settle down together soonAlso Read I can win gold again High jumper Mariyappan