P.R. Sreejesh had a lot on his plate before and during the Tokyo Olympic Games. As the senior-most member of the Indian hockey team, he had to ensure that the team remained focused and motivated; and as the goalkeeper, he had to ensure that he was on top of his game when the moment came. He did both jobs remarkably well. “I slept peacefully before every match at the Olympics,” he told THE WEEK from Tokyo.
After August 5, however, life became different for Sreejesh and his teammates. On that day, India beat Germany 5-4 to win the bronze medal. The Indian hockey team was back on the podium at the Olympics after 41 years. The players could not sleep properly for a few days after that owing to innumerable protocols and demands on their time.
After spending two days in Delhi after returning from Tokyo, Sreejesh made a dash to Kerala to meet his family before returning for the Independence Day function in the capital. So did the rest of his teammates. None of the players or support staff had been home for nine months, as they camped and trained on the Sports Authority of India campus in Bengaluru. “I had a wonderful Olympic Games,” said Sreejesh. “Whenever there was a chance I was able to save goals and give life to my team. Being the senior-most player, I had to be an example for youngsters and motivate them.”
The Indian hockey team led by Manpreet Singh and coached by Graham Reid has dared to dream. “It is a very big achievement,” said Manpreet. “We had heard stories of winning medals, but all those medals had happened before I was born.” It was the same for the likes of defender Harmanpreet Singh, 25, or midfielder Hardik Singh, 24, or Simranjeet Singh, who came in as a reserve player outside the squad of 16 and scored two important goals in the bronze medal match against Germany. This group of players, however, showed no signs of carrying the burden of the past, and they wrote an entirely new chapter in Indian hockey.
For former Australian player and coach Reid, a podium finish was no unknown territory. But he wanted it with India. “I always had hoped we could stand on the podium. I had seen the team during the 2018 World Cup. I was with the Dutch team then. The aim was to try and build some consistency in their performance and some belief, which we had been able to do,” he said.
Tokyo 2020 has been a watershed Olympic Games for not just Indian hockey but the entire nation. Generations have seen the dream of an Olympic medal in hockey fade; generations have now realised what it means to win an Olympic medal in hockey. “When I started my career, I would hear the history, medal-winning days. Now I have become part of that,” said Sreejesh. Hockey makes India weep with joy and pain; it is a love affair that never fades.
Tokyo was Manpreet’s third Olympics. “It feels good after having experienced the disaster in London 2012 and the pain of not going past the quarterfinal stage in Rio 2016,” he said. “This time we did a lot of hard work; we were at the SAI campus for 15 months, made lots of sacrifices for a good result.”
This win pushed the men’s team to the third position in the FIH World Rankings. The rise, however, did not happen overnight. The signs were there in Rio, but the team failed to make it past the quarterfinals. The brief for Reid when he took charge in April 2019 was a podium finish.
This Olympic campaign was different from the others in the past. The team has no big stars unlike earlier, but it has a deep sense of self-belief in its capabilities. “We can beat any team and we have done so in the past. We had sacrificed so much to get here. After losing the semifinal match, in the team meeting, we said that the team wanted to go to the finals, but unfortunately, we couldn’t. If we did not win the bronze medal we would go empty-handed and we would regret that for the rest of our lives. So the last match against Germany would be the most important 60 minutes of our career,” said Manpreet.
Being the senior-most player, I had to be an example for youngsters and motivate them—P.R. Sreejesh, atop the goal post
This campaign was also about team effort and cohesiveness. “The last 15 months added to team bonding and togetherness,” said Reid. “I was telling these guys for the last few months not to underestimate its effect when you are put under pressure. To be 3-1 down against Germany in the last match after the semifinal loss, we dug deep and it was great to see. The support staff along with players have made sacrifices that paid off.”
The road to success has not been smooth—seven players got Covid-19 and there was little top-level competition before going to Tokyo because of the restrictions. Yet, the team kept working hard.
One of the standouts at the Olympics was the team’s fitness levels. “Our fitness levels were extraordinary,” said Reid. “You saw that in the game against Germany.” To achieve this, it took a lot of doing. “In 2019, we went to Japan for the test event. We knew it would be hot and humid during the Olympics. So we trained in the afternoons at home to get used to the heat there,” said Manpreet.
The team with 10 Olympic debutants was also a mentally stronger side than its predecessors. Gone were the days of nervy last few minutes of the match when Indians habitually conceded penalty corners and goals under pressure. Reid prefers to describe it as one of the downsides of the modern game rather than any apparent weakness in the Indian team. “We were 3-2 up against New Zealand in the test event in Tokyo in 2019, and then they scored two goals in two minutes and we lost the game. We tore that game apart. Piece by piece, play by play we checked what was going through the players’ minds. I don’t think it’s just India. It’s the modern game. You can turn it around in two minutes as you saw with the Indian girls.”
The team worked hard to overcome this issue in training. “In the 2018 Asian Games, we lost to Malaysia like this in the semifinals,” said Manpreet. “Something happened. We worked very hard on our defence to ensure that it does not happen again. We would not take it easy in the last five minutes; the aim was to keep the opposition on the other side if we were leading in the last few minutes of the game.”
With the Paris Olympic Games just three years away, the big question being asked is what India needs to do to bridge the glaring gap it has with the top two teams—Australia and Belgium. The only two games India lost in its Tokyo campaign were against Australia (1-7) and Belgium (2-5), the eventual silver and gold medallists, respectively. Reid, who is continuing as the chief coach, said he would be investigating to work out what needs to be done to close the gap. “Teams that succeed are ones that can string one good corner after another, match after another. We had one lapse in the middle. The Olympics is different,” he said.
After months of staying in the camp, living and breathing hockey with teammates, it is time now to savour the bronze. Time to put up their feet with family and friends. Soon, it will be time to get back to hockey, to national duty.