Olympic gold-winning hockey captain says Tokyo bronze thriller was like final against Spain in 1980
It’s been 41 years, yet it still feels like yesterday. I was the captain when India won the last medal — a gold— in the Moscow Olympics. Since then, it has been four decades of drought and I have been part of it, in various capacities. I was the coach of the Indian team in 2000 in Sydney when India should have won a medal, but we slipped in our last group game against Poland.
It still rankles. But all the anguish of these 41 years seemed a thing of the past when Indian goalkeeper P R Sreejesh kept that last-minute penalty corner against Germany out in the third-place play-off in Tokyo. It’s a bronze, but it means a lot more than that. For people like us, who have been part of this journey for so long, it was a moment of redemption.
It still rankles. But all the anguish of these 41 years seemed a thing of the past when Indian goalkeeper P R Sreejesh kept that last-minute penalty corner against Germany out in the third-place play-off in Tokyo. It’s a bronze, but it means a lot more than that. For people like us, who have been part of this journey for so long, it was a moment of redemption.