From gloom to glory!

India’s Olympic bronze medal-winning hockey captain Manpreet Singh reveals how the 1-7 defeat to Australia felt like a tight slap and made the team work harder to finish on the podium in Tokyo

India’s men’s hockey captain Manpreet Singh can’t stop smiling. The joy of fulfilling the dreams of a billion-plus population with an Olympic medal in the national sport after a gap of 41 years continues to overwhelm him. “This medal is a symbol of happiness. Wherever I go, it brings a satisfying smile on people’s faces regardless of age, gender, caste or creed,” the Red Bull athlete tells mid-day on his first visit to Mumbai since the bronze medal-winning Tokyo Olympics feat, on Monday.

In an interview, Manpreet, 29, elaborates on the topsy-turvy Tokyo ride and reveals how one dark evening after the 1-7 hammering against Australia lit up Indian hockey’s fortunes.

Edited excerpts from the interview.

India got most of its video referrals right in Tokyo. How much of a role did this play in the team’s success?
The 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 team’s morale after the big defeat to Australia in the league phase.
We 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. It’s just that certain things didn’t 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 wake-up, like one tight slap that shook us. We worked doubly hard in the matches thereafter.

Does this Olympic bronze put India in a great position to win gold at next year’s Asian Games?
Just 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 lowly-ranked team like South Africa shocked Germany, so anything can happen in modern hockey. Asian teams are no pushovers.

How do you foresee the road map ahead for Indian hockey?
We have the Asian Games [Hangzhou, China] and Commonwealth Games [Birmingham, England] next year. Then in 2023, we have the World Cup in Odisha and that’s a stage where we want to prove ourselves in front of our home crowd. And of course, then at the 2024 Paris Olympics, 
we will be aiming for gold.  

The young Indian forwardline missed a lot of scoring opportunities especially in one-to-one situations with the opposition goalkeepers. How do you explain this?
Firstly, everyone said that we have 10 Olympic debutants, so it’s an inexperienced team but I disagree. This time the Olympics happened after five years [due to the COVID-19 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 Singh.

Finally, 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, I’ve 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 soon.

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