Tokyo Olympics: A Turnaround For Sure But Indian Hockey Teams Still Have Miles To Go

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall…figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

—Michael Jordan

India’s hockey campaign at Tokyo 2020 exemplified and made flesh this exhortation from the American basketball legend. Given the sheer merit of the achievement and the circumstan­ces under which it came, the bronze medal won by the men’s team after 41 years is comparable to India’s biggest cricketing exploits. No less significant was the achievement of the women’s hockey team. Rank outsiders five years ago at Rio 2016, India narrowly missed a historic bronze, but Rani Rampal’s team overcame a horror start and finished as the fourth best team in the world.

“No matter what medal India wins at the Olympics, until we win a medal in hockey, the country doesn’t feel we have got something big,” PM Narendra Modi enthused in a Mann Ki Baat broadcast. Millions agree. Eight-time champions India last won a medal (gold) at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The Tokyo bronze dissolved some of the accreting embarrassment around hockey and re-established India as a hockey superpower.

An acknowledgement of India’s new-found status came when the internatio­nal hockey federation named the can­­didates for the FIH Hockey Stars Awards 2020-21. India sparkles in an all-round show: veterans P.R. Sreejesh and Savita Punia are in contention for Goal­keeper of the Year; Harmanpreet Singh and Gurjit Kaur, both dragflickers, are in fray for the Player of the Year award.

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“I feel the Tokyo bronze is a vindication of the hard work over the past 11 years. This is, however, the first step to regain the crowning glory of Olympic gold. India is all on track,” says former India coach, Olympian Michael Nobbs.

Yet the hunt for an Olympic gold is made of relentless work, a pursuit that never really ends. The results in Tokyo are just another starting point to the road to Paris 2024. The hockey players are expected to be back at the national camp in Bangalore sometime in September. If the pandemic relents, and permits, they will be at the Asian Champions Trophy in Dhaka (for men) and the South Korean city of Donghae (for women) in October. These will be the first test of India’s new-found status. But all eyes are on 2022—when the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and the World Cup qualifiers are slotted.

If Hockey India’s relationship with the Sports Authority of India remains smooth, Graham Reid should remain men’s coach. The Aussie did not go home to Perth after the Games and returned to India to a rousing welcome he had “never seen before”. An overseas coach is the way forward, feels Nobbs. “Have a look at across the border (Pakistan). They have believed that any Olympian can coach. How has that worked out for them? They are equally talented…poor coaching and infighting has rui­ned Pakistan. This Indian team needs to press further and it’s going to be harder as there is not a lot between the top six teams.”

Reid agrees. “I think the boys understand that the bronze was great, but there is potential that we now need to discover, unlock and display. Australia and Belgium are consistently playing at a higher level. So that’s for us is a pretty simple goal…. We will analyse all the different teams and try to find out what it needs for us to go to the next level,” he says.

The biggest takeaway for both Indian teams in Tokyo was the mental strength they displayed to claw back every time the chips were down. India seemed to be wrecked after the men were snowed under 7-1 by Australia and the women lost their first three matches. Then, they staged stirring turnarounds, with the women especially showing amazing grit to bounce back. “After Tokyo, we believe that on a given day we can compete with any team in the world. Never give up and fight till the last second were big lessons from the Olympics,” said skipper Rani.

Nobbs lauds this immense shift in attitude. He was head coach when India finished last at London 2012, despite a gifted team. “(In Tokyo) India had two choices—surrender, which many Indian teams have in the past or show the courage to step forward. To their credit they showed resilience,” observes Nobbs.

Reid is setting the agenda for the next Olympic cycle; first he will have to bring the players back to reality. “Expec­tations are high...a medal is expected in hoc­key. The team-first mentality and a step-by-step approach must be retai­ned and imp­roved. The results take care of the­­m­­selves. The boys understand that.” Slow, steady improvement looms marv­ellously large all of a sudden. A firecra­c­ker went off in Tokyo; now it’s back to the grind. A bigger bang awaits us in Paris.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Drag The Flame")