“Biggest Moment For Indian Hockey”: Rani Rampal Is Proud After Reaching Tokyo Olympics Semifinals
The captain of the Indian women’s national hockey team, Rani Rampal, says that reaching the semifinals of the Olympic Games in Tokyo is the most important moment for Indian hockey. In an exciting quarterfinal competition, Rampal and Company showed a brilliant performance, beating Australia 1-0 and reaching the semifinals of the Olympic Games for the first time in history.
Drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur rose to the occasion and converted India’s lone penalty corner in the 22nd minute to surprise the Australians. Rani heaped huge praises on her players after reaching the historic semifinals.
“It’s the biggest moment for Indian hockey. Men’s and women’s team in semis. I’m super proud of the team. We said to each other – give it your all and we did exactly that,” Rani said.
Gurjit also talked about the efforts the team made to achieve the desired result and thanked the supporters for backing them.
“We are so happy, it is the result of hard work that we put in for several, several days. In 1980, we qualified for the Games but this time, we made the semifinals. It is a proud moment for us,” Gurjit said after the match.
“This team is like a family, we have supported each other and found support from the country as well. We are very happy,” she added.
India’s best performance in the Olympics came way back in the 1980 Moscow Games where they finished fourth out of six teams.
In that edition of the Games, women’s hockey made its debut in the Olympics and the sport was played in a round-robin format with the top two teams qualifying for the final.
It was a rock-solid performance by Indian goalkeeper Savita denied every shot from the Australian attackers to maintain the clean sheet. World no.2 Australia chased the ball the entire game as they failed to get into the rhythm.
