The Indian men’s hockey team have won a whopping eight gold medals besides one silver and two bronze medals at the Olympics. But there are a couple of occasions when the national team missed out on a possible podium finish. Let us take a close look at these tourneys:
1984 Los Angeles Olympics
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It was believed that this was the best team to have played in the Olympics in the post-independent era – and why not – the team had talents like Mohammed Shahid, Zafar Iqbal, Merwyn Fernandes among a host of others. India made the right noises beating USA 5-1 - Merwyn Fernandes playing in his second Olympics – scored a brace while the likes of gifted Mohamed Shahid, Joaquim Carvalho and Charanjit Kumar scored one each.
India then rode on a hat-trick by Vineet Kumar Sharma to pip Malaysia 3-1. The country’s next game against Spain went right down to the wire – Merwyn Fernandes once again hogged the limelight scoring a brace with the mercurial Mohamed Shahid and Hardeep Singh scoring one goal as India triumphed 4-3.
Also Read: India's Olympic Hockey dream - A fan's take on the Blueshirts' chances
The winning run of India was brought to a halt by Australia – who beat the Blueshirts 4-2 in the fourth league tie, throwing the onus on qualifying for the semifinals on the final must-win league tie against Germany.
Germany played a defensive game and held India to a goalless draw to sneak into the last-four stage – the national side were left to rue their missed chances, the most prominent being skipper Zafar Iqbal missing in front of an open goal. Thus, the Blueshirts missed out on a possible podium finish by the skin of their teeth.
2000 Sydney Olympics
The Ramandeep Singh-led side started on a bullish note easing past Argentina 3-0 with Sameer Dad scoring a brace and Mukesh Kumar scoring once. It was Mukesh Kumar who gave India an opening minute lead in their second tie against Australia as India twice took the lead, only to surrender it as they played out a 2-2 draw.
But the Blueshirts lost a crucial game against South Korea – going down 0-2 that did dampen their semifinal hopes. A 0-2 loss to South Korea meant that India had to beat Poland and outstrip South Korea and advance to the semifinals.
Dilip Tirkey scored a 53rd minute short corner goal and India were poised to win the game and march into the semifinals, but Tomasz Cichy struck for Poland with a minute left for the final hooter to pull off a 1-1 draw, which put India and Korea tied on points, but the latter went through by virtue of having beaten India 2-0 in their league tie.
India subsequently slipped further in the classification stage, losing to Great Britain 1-2 but pipped Argentina for the second time in the Olympics – 3-1 to finish a disappointing 7th.
