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Reuters: The Indian hockey team’s qualification for the London Games could be the first small step towards reviving the glory days, according to captain Bharat Chetri.
India won the last of their eight gold medals in 1980 and the long gradual decline reached its nadir in 2008 when the team failed to qualify for the Beijing Games.
A rumbling administrative row and cricket’s emergence as the single most dominant sport have not helped Indian hockey and it was a huge relief when Chetri and his team won a qualifying tournament last month to book a place for London.
“What we have started is aimed at regaining what we have lost in the last 30-40 years,” the 30-year-old goalkeeper told Reuters in an interview.
“We are once again chasing those glorious days when we had so many hockey fans ... we used to win so many medals and so many kids used to play the sport.
“We want to once again get back to those days in India.”
Chetri, who missed the final of the qualifying tournament in Delhi due to the team’s rotation policy for its goalkeepers, said the players had sailed into London on a wave of confidence.
“We were not even thinking about qualification. We were thinking about how we would perform in London,” Chetri said by phone.
“We had the belief and we were confident that it would not be difficult to qualify.”
Under Australian coach Michael Nobbs, the players have become fitter physically and their skill levels improved, Chetri added.
“We will try to continue that form. We will try and work on the mistakes we committed during the tournament and hopefully we will be well prepared for the Olympics.”
Hockey remains a poor cousin of cricket, which hogs most sponsorship money and media coverage, and has been in the doldrums amid a long-running row between two rival federations who claim to be the authority to run the sport in the country.
But India’s qualification gave the team rare front page coverage in local dailies and also dominated the primetime news slots.
Their strong showing in the tournament, unbeaten in six matches with 44 goals scored, has once again captured the country’s imagination.
Sponsors and local governments have subsequently announced cash bonuses for the national hockey team in a welcome change for Chetri.
“We need sponsors, hockey needs to be marketed. The fact that sponsors are also coming to hockey was a motivation for us beside our preparation,” Chetri said.
“It’s good for the sport and hockey needs it. The young kids who want to play hockey might be wondering if their parents would like them to take up hockey as a profession.
“The money is important; otherwise they would say there’s no money in hockey. Why should a kid aspire to be a hockey player in that case?”
