If there is one thing that the Indian women’s hockey team knows, it is survival. On the field or off it. Captain Rani Rampal’s family has fought poverty; her father was a tonga puller in Shahbad, Haryana. Midfielder Neha Goyal, 24, escaped an abusive, alcoholic father; she worked with her mother in a cycle factory to earn two meals a day. Defender Nikki Pradhan, 27, hails from Hesal, a Naxal hotbed in Jharkhand; her sister worked as a labourer to buy her a hockey stick. Midfielder Nisha Warsi, from Sonipat, Haryana, found encouragement in her tailor father, but her wings were clipped when a paralytic stroke hit him. Her mother worked in a foam factory to make ends meet, and Warsi eventually made it to the national team.
It is this grit and determination that shocked powerhouse Australia in the quarterfinals in Tokyo. This was the third time the Indian women’s team had made it to an Olympics—the previous being Moscow 1980 and Rio 2016—and this was its most successful outing. In Rio, the team finished its campaign without a win.
Five years later, the women had a disappointing start once again; the Netherlands beat them 5-1. They then lost to Germany and Britain. A repeat of Rio was on the cards. The aim was a quarterfinal finish, for which they had to beat Ireland and South Africa. They did it. “We did not have many practice matches before the Olympics, so we kept telling the girls to improve with every match,” chief coach Sjoerd Marijne said of the early matches. “After we lost to the Netherlands, it looked as if everything was shattered; it was not. We only needed to make a few small improvements.”
Denne historien er fra August 15, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra August 15, 2021-utgaven av THE WEEK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI