Unlike the men, the Indian women’s hockey team don’t have a rich history at the Olympics. The team will be making just their third appearan...
Unlike the men, the Indian women’s hockey team don’t have a rich history at the Olympics. The team will be making just their third appearance at the quadrennial Games, so the focus will be on creating history.
The Rani Rampal-led history have already done that after qualifying for back-to-back Olympic Games for the first time, but the desire is to do more. In Rio, where the team made the cut for the Games after a 36-year absence, they had an outing to forget.
India lost four out of the five matches conceding 19 goals and scoring just three in reply. The only draw came against Japan where the Rani Rampal-led side had to twice come from behind.
However, at Tokyo, India who reached the quarter-finals at the World Cup are hoping to at least match that feat. The general desire is to do a lot more than make up the numbers.
Ranked tenth in the FIH charts, reaching the quarter-finals would mean overachievement for Sjoerd Marijne’s team, but the coach feels it’s a realistic target.
“I think probably because we did good in the past in the last four years, but still we have to be realistic. We are focusing on reaching the quarter-finals and...
