From a historic fourth-place finish at the prestigious Tokyo Olympics to achieving the best-ever FIH World Rankings to bagging FIH Hockey Stars Awards 2021 in all categories, the year 2021 was a fairytale for the Indian Women’s Hockey Team.
The Indian eves became the first of India’s hockey teams to return to international hockey after the pandemic-enforced hiatus disrupted the calendar. The team began the Olympic year 2021 with Argentina tour in January, followed by a four-match Germany tour in February. After having spent the following months at SAI Centre in Bengaluru, the Indian Women’s Hockey team went on to script history at the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021.
Rani-led India, who started their campaign with three losses, pulled off arguably one of the biggest upsets in world hockey as they defeated the mighty Australian side in what was their historic Quarter-Final encounter of the Olympic Games. However, they missed out on a medal by a whisker as they narrowly lost in both Semi-Final and the Bronze Medal classification matches against Argentina and Great Britain, respectively.
Looking back at the dream year, the Indian Women’s Hockey Team Captain Rani expressed, “This year was like an emotional roller coaster, full of ups and downs. But, to be honest, we really enjoyed the ride as it included the historic Tokyo Olympics campaign. I reckon 2021 was full of self-belief and determination. There were a lot of learnings involved, and Covid-19 taught us invaluable life lessons. One of them was to stay in the present moment. Staying in the present moment helped us qualify for the Quarter Final as well as beat a team like Australia to script the history.”
Following their historic performance in Tokyo, the Indian Women’s team bagged FIH Hockey Stars Awards 2021 in all categories. Dragflicker Gurjit Kaur won the FIH Women’s Player of The Year award, Goalkeeper Savita won the FIH Women’s Goalkeeper of the Year award, Sharmila Devi clinched the FIH Women’s Rising Star of the Year award, and former Indian Women’s Hockey Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne was awarded the FIH Women’s Team Coach of the Year.
Additionally, members of the women’s team were conferred with national awards in November 2021. Skipper Rani was honoured with Padma Shri, the country’s fourth-highest civilian award, while experienced forward Vandana Katariya and midfielder Monika were conferred with the Arjuna award.