Indian hockey team wins a medal after 41 years.

It was over 40 years ago in 1980 that Indian hockey team won a medal in Olympics. Today after defeating Germany, India’s men hockey won 12th medal at the Olympics, which makes it the sole best-performing nation in history. After loosing against Belgium in the semi finals on August 3 with the margin of 5-2, India fought against Germany for the bronze medal.

In the first quarter Germany took the lead with the score 1-0 against India. Timm Herzbruch sent the ball to Florian Fuchs, who in turn set up Timur Oruz. There were a couple of defenders around him, but Oruz still scored. After 10 minutes  German midfielder Mats Grambusch received a long pass up front and entered the circle. He got past Hardik Singh and released a shot, which was blocked by Indian keeper PR Sreejesh.

After 17 minutes just after the start of second round Nilakanta Sharma received the ball, evaded a couple of tackles and sent a delightful pass towards Simranjeet Singh, who found the back of the net and scored the goal and the score was now 1-1. After 24 minutes Eventually, Christopher Ruhr slipped a pass to Niklas Wellen, who made it 2-1 for the Germans and just after a minute Germans scored another goal making it to 3-1. The hopes had just started declining until Hardik Singh scored a goal for India and it was 3-2 now and just after 2 minutes Harmanpreet Singh scored his sixth goal of the Tokyo Olympics with an excellent drag-flick. The second round ended with the score 3-3. It was the most thrilling round of all.

Just after the start of the third round India received a penalty stroke and Rupinder Pal Singh made no mistake and gave India a lead with the score 3-4. At 34 minutes India scored another goal setting the score to 3-5. After the start of the fourth quarter Germany scored a goal and now score was 4-5. In the end Germans were able to penetrate twice but the Indian goalkeeper Sreejesh saved the goal beautifully twice and thus leading the country to the victory.