Tokyo Olympics 2020: India finally get past mental blocks to clinch hockey bronze medal

“They used to win for fun” — it’s a statement I heard so often in my childhood. But there was little fun in watching India play hockey on the international stage. Of course, the India-Pakistan matches were always blockbuster regardless of what was at stake. But then again, international hockey is not just India and Pakistan going after each other. Passion, rivalry, revenge, statistics have their own place in sport but in the end, a team will be judged by its trophy cabinet. The Asian Games, Asia Cup, Sultan Azlan Shah winner’s medals were great but the Olympics and World Cup are the real deal. It’s the stage India conquered very early — a World Cup win in the third edition in 1975. Eight gold medals at Summer Olympics by 1980. And then a lull. Two decades of failing to make a mark at the biggest stage. Then came the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Team India stacked with stalwarts like Dhanraj Pillay, Mukesh Kumar, Ramandeep Singh, Dilip Tirkey and Baljit Singh Dhillon was seen as the one which can finally go the distance. In the end, it all boiled down to the final group match against Poland - who were already out of the Games. A 2-2 draw would have been enough to reach the semi-finals, from where it could have been anybody’s game. Tirkey gave India a 1-0 lead in the 53rd minute and they looked destined for the first semi-finals since the 1972 Games, but with under two minutes to go, Poland struck back. India’s dream was dashed.

शब्दों की जरूरत कहाँ, सिर्फ तस्वीरें ही काफी हैं| 🥉🇮🇳#HaiTayyar #IndiaKaGame #Tokyo2020 #TeamIndia #TokyoTogether #StrongerTogether #HockeyInvites #WeAreTeamIndia #Hockey pic.twitter.com/1V7RdJGvu6

— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) August 5, 2021

The revival that Indian hockey sought was over before it began. The campaign was expected to transform rotten luck but defeat left a scar on Indian hockey and on the minds of the fans, who wouldn’t love the sport the same way anymore. The belief went away. “We were in mourning that evening in Sydney. And we still mourn that defeat,” Pillay said last year describing that defeat. This was followed by even more lows. In 2006, India, for the first time, failed to win a medal at the Asian Games. In 2007, they reached their lowest ranking of 12. In 2008, they failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. The 2008 ignominy woke up the hockey giant from its slumber as they were put on the path of redemption. Things started to improve for Indian hockey. India qualified for the 2012 London Olympics but finished last at the Games. They won gold at Asian Games in 2014. At the 2016 Rio Games, they finished eighth among 12 teams. The Champions Trophy medals came back. Still, there was something missing. The ability to do well in crucial moments. The ability to clinch the big games. India lost to Belgium in the quarter-finals of the 2016 Olympics. They lost in the last-eight of the 2018 World Cup to the Netherlands. Heck, they also lost the 2018 Asian Games gold to Japan. Abhinav Bindra once said, for an athlete Olympics is every day. A medal at Games is not a byproduct of having an athlete and giving him/her the facilities. It’s a result of inculcating a process where winning is everything. A process where skills are perfected and flaws are ironed out. India undertook that process with Graham Reid. The Australian coach was quick to work on players' fitness , to match the traditional powerhouses like Australia and Germany. The focus was also on the mental side. Reid is known for keeping a ‘wellness report’ to track the physical and mental conditioning of his players. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Indian players into the SAI Bengaluru camp for months without proper training and competitive hockey also had its role in forging a strong mentality among the athletes. The way they successfully negotiated the isolation spoke highly of how they have developed mentally. “While it’s was unfortunate the men’s and women’s players had to stay away from family for a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe that made them strong mentally. No other players, India or outside, stayed in the bubble for nine months. Only the hockey team stayed and only the hockey team can do it. Even Graham Reid could not back home. Even Sjoerd Marijne (women’s team coach). Overall the mental attitude had got stronger, the will to fight back after being down in a match,” says Vasudevan Baskaran, who captained India to gold in the 1980 Moscow Games. The impact was there to be seen in Tokyo. India, despite suffering a 7-1 defeat to Australia in their second group match, went about their business, as usual, beating other teams to finish second in Pool A. There was no panic. Once they got out of the group stage, it was about decoding the knockout puzzle. They did that admirably against Great Britain to reach the first semi-finals in 49 years. And while they lost to world champions Belgium in the last-four, there was little to separate the two teams apart from Alexander Hendrickx's sublime drag-flicks .

This Day. This Moment. This Team. 🥉🇮🇳

You are looking at the most successful Men's Hockey Team in Olympics history.#HaiTayyar #IndiaKaGame #Tokyo2020 #TeamIndia #TokyoTogether #StrongerTogether #HockeyInvites #WeAreTeamIndia #Hockey pic.twitter.com/4s6ckKLLu5

— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) August 5, 2021

More from Sports

With 25th Grand Slam looking increasingly uncertain, Novak Djokovic could fulfill another dream next year Handshake Row: India didn’t do anything out of ordinary, athletes have often registered protests like this

However, it was in the Germany game, with the medal at stake, where all the hard work they had done had to come to fruition to finally exorcise the past ghosts of tanking at the crucial juncture. Down 0-1 in the second minute, India hit back with the leveller in the second quarter. They then trailed 1-3 with half-time fast approaching but found the crucial goals to go into the break at 3-3. In the third quarter, it was India’s turn to take a 5-3 lead which eventually proved to be too big a task for Germany despite them scoring one more. “I said before that I will be disappointed if they are not on the medal podium…Normally I don’t predict like this, but the overall attitude of this team confirmed that they can win a medal. They could have gone a step further if not for a few bad minutes against Belgium,” says Baskaran, who was India’s coach during the 2000 Sydney heartbreak. The 41-year wait for the medal was over. But more importantly, India got over the mental block that scars from the past left behind. The manner in which Manpreet Singh and Co secured the nation’s first Olympic medal in 41 years shows that belief is back in the system for Indian hockey. A wait of over four decades felt like an eternity, now that it’s over, let’s go win some more!