‘Nothing but proud’: India laud women’s hockey team’s valiant performance at Tokyo Olympics

India put on a valiant fight in the bronze medal match against Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. Despite going down 2-0 at one point, the Indian team scored three quick goals to take lead in the match and put the Rio Olympics gold medalists on the backfoot.

While Britain bounced back to win the match 4-3, Indian team’s superb efforts in Tokyo were applauded by the fans who praised the team for never giving up throughout their campaign.

Also read: India women’s hockey team miss out on bronze medal, lose thriller against Great Britain

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also took to Twitter to show praise on India’s brave performance in Tokyo. “We narrowly missed a medal in Women’s Hockey but this team reflects the spirit of New India- where we give our best and scale new frontiers. More importantly, their success at #Tokyo2020 will motivate young daughters of India to take up Hockey and excel in it. Proud of this team,” he wrote on Twitter.

This is India’s best-ever showing in Olympics in women’s hockey. India have only featured twice before in the Games. While they had finished in fourth position in 1980 as well, they had not qualified for the tournament and competed in a six-team round-robin format.

India qualified for the Olympics for the first time in 2016 where they had finished in 12th position out of 12 teams. But this time, they manged to finish in fourth position, showcasing their rise over the years.