Eight debutants in Indian women’s hockey team for Tokyo 2020
Tokyo will be the third Olympics for the Indian women’s hockey team. Rani Rampal will lead the squad in Japan.
Hockey India, on Thursday, named a 16-member Indian women’s hockey team for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.
The squad, a healthy blend of experience and youth, features eight veteran players - captain Rani Rampal, vice captain Savita Punia, Deep Grace Ekka, Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam, Monika, Nikki Pradhan, Navjot Kaur and Vandana Katariya - who represented India at Rio 2016.
The remaining eight, meanwhile, will be making their Olympic debut.
Drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur, Udita, Nisha, Neha Goyal, Navneet Kaur, Sharmila Devi, Lalremsiami and Salima Tete, who led India to a 2018 Youth Olympic Games silver medal at Buenos Aires, make up the youth brigade.
“This team has worked very hard over the last few years and has made progress consistently. We look forward to taking on the best in the world in Tokyo. This is a team with a lot of potential and drive which we hope to channelise to our best performance yet,” Indian women’s hockey chief coach Sjoerd Marijne said.
Tokyo 2020 will be the Indian women's hockey team's third appearance overall and second successive outing at the Olympics.
In their maiden appearance at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Indian eves finished fourth, narrowly missing out on a medal.
After a wait of 36 long years, India returned to the women’s hockey event at Rio 2016 but failed to progress beyond the group stage, where they finished last.
Since Rio, though, the team has progressed leaps and bounds. Indian women won the 2016 Asian Champions Trophy, 2017 Asia Cup and a silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games.
They also made it to the quarter-finals of the 2018 Women’s World Cup for the first time in history before putting on consistent performances at the qualifiers to book their spot to Tokyo.
With the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics by a year due to COVID-19, the team took the additional time to prepare for the Games.
The Indian women’s hockey team conducted several national camps and went on tours to Germany and Argentina in the early part of 2021 to finetune its Tokyo prep.
The team is currently training at the SAI Centre Bengaluru. The Tokyo Olympics begin on July 23.
Indian women’s hockey squad for Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Goalkeepers: Savita Punia (vice captain)
Defenders: Deep Grace Ekka, Nikki Pradhan, Gurjit Kaur, Udita
Midfielders: Nisha, Neha, Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam, Monika, Navjot Kaur, Salima Tete
Forwards: Rani Rampal (captain), Navneet Kaur, Lalremsiami, Vandana Katariya, Sharmila Devi