Olympics: India win bronze medal in Tokyo, first Olympic medal in hockey since 1980

India men’s hockey team defeated Germany to win the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday. This is India’s first Olympic medal in hockey since they won the gold medal in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

This is India’s fourth-medal (and fifth confirmed) in Tokyo so far, other than weightlifter Mirabai Chanu who won silver in 48kg category, boxer Lovlina Borgohain who won bronze medal in women’s welterweight category and shuttler PV Sindhu who won a bronze medal in women’s singles competition.

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India saw Germany take an early lead with Timur Oruz scoring within two minutes of the match. Germany troubled Indian defense in the first quarter, but could not find a way to extend their lead.

In the 2nd quarter, India saw Simranjeet Singh scoring from a well-executed tomahawk shot, but defensive errors lead to Germany scoring two more goals within two minutes. Just when it looked India might be in trouble, two penalty corners for India yielded results as Hardik Singh scored on the rebound from the first one, while Harmanpreet Singh scored another with a superb dragflick onto the back of the nets to level the scores at 3-3 by halftime.

The third quarter was where the tide completely shifted in India’s favour as Rupinder Pal Singh converted a penalty stroke after Hardik Singh was tripped inside the scoring circle. Minutes later, Simranjeet Singh scored from open play after Gurjant Singh dribbled past German defence from right and pushed the ball to him in front of the goal. Simranjeet made no mistake and struck it in cleanly to extend India’s lead.

Lukas Windfeder pulled one back in the final quarter, but it was not enough for Germany to push it to the shootouts. Germany received a penalty corner in the dying seconds of the match, but Indai goalkeeper PR Sreejesh made a fantastic save as Manpreet Singh and co. scripted history in Tokyo.

It was a good journey for India men’s hockey team in Tokyo Olympics, defeating New Zealand 3-2 in their opening group game, and then picking up wins over Germany (2-0), Spain (3-1), Argentina (3-1), and Japan (5-3) in the group matches. Barring the 7-1 defeat against Australia, and the 5-2 loss in the semifinal to the World Champions Belgium, India won all their games in Tokyo.