India at Olympics: Hockey breaks 41-year jinx, Dahiya wins silver

Heartbreak for Deepak Punia, Vinesh on a day of misses for Indian wrestlers

India’s newest wrestling star Ravi Dahiya picked up an impressive silver on his Olympic debut but the country was left emotionally stirred by its lionhearted men’s hockey team players who secured a bronze that washed away four decades of pain and disappointment that the sport and its followers have endured.

Thirteen years after failing to even qualify for the Games, an Indian hockey team stood at the podium, something that had become a mythical tale of a bygone era for an entire generation.

It was India’s 12th Olympic hockey medal but the one that came after a gap of 41 years. It was India's fifth medal of the ongoing Games and perhaps the one which evoked the most emotional response. To put it in context, the last time India won a hockey medal at the Olympics, the USSR still existed.

On Thursday morning, Manpreet Singh and his men outran, outwitted, outpaced and to an extent outplayed an aggressive German team 5-4 to shed the baggage of failures and announce the “rebirth” of Indian hockey as the generation before this one knew it.

“...we didn’t give up. We kept fighting back,” said an overwhelmed Manpreet after the win which ensured that his and the rest of his teammates' names would be written in golden words in the history of Indian hockey.

 

In a cricket-mad India, hockey has always been a sentimental sport, making the layman nostalgic about a glorious past, which is dotted with eight Olympic gold medals. And having ruefully seen its decline in the past several years, it was only fair that the nation celebrated with gusto.

Dahiya added to this celebration with a silver medal in the men's 57kg division. He lost the final to reigning world champion Zavur Uguev of Russian Olympic Committee to sign off with a silver, which was only the second ever by an Indian wrestler.

There was also plenty of good news coming in from the golf course where Aditi Ashok put herself in contention for a podium finnish with a flawless five-under 66 in the second round hat left her tied second at the end of the day's play.

But there were plenty of disappointments too, the biggest one being star wrestler Vinesh Phogat. After a good win in the opening round, she lost to Belarus’ Vanesa Kaladzinskaya in the quarterfinals. Her medal hopes were dashed when Kaladzinskaya failed to make the finals.

The 19-year-old Deepak Punia (86kg) came close to a bronze medal but conceded the winning lead to San Marino's Myles Nazem Amine with just a few seconds left in the bout. But nothing could dampen the euphoria of a hockey medal, the sentimental favourite of a cricket-mad country.