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What's the story?
Recently, at a promotional event that was conducted in the build-up to the FIH Women's Hockey World Cup, the tournament organizers made a huge blunder as they forgot putting the Ashoka Chakra in the middle of the Indian National flag. This has not gone down well with the Indian hockey fans.
In case you didn't know...
The Women's Hockey World Cup is an extremely prestigious event and the 14th edition is set to kickstart on July 21 in London. The Indian Women's team is making its seventh appearance at the coveted World Cup.
The Golden Girls of Hockey (World No. 10) are placed in a tough Group B alongside the hosts England (World No. 2), The United States of America (World No. 7), and Ireland (World No. 16). They will be having a difficult schedule as the Asian Games are also coming up in August. The Rani Rampal led team is hopeful for a finish in the Top 4 at the World Cup and Sjoerd Marijne has been working hard with them. Their best finish at the mega-event has been a 4th place finish in 1974, which also happened to be the inaugural edition of the event.
The Indian Women's team went on to finish 7th in the 1978 edition of the event which was conducted in Madrid, Spain and that they have failed to finish in the Top 8 thereafter.
The heart of the matter
At a time when Indian hockey fans are extremely optimistic for both the National teams, the omission of the Ashoka Chakra by the event organizers comes as a shocker and has left fans miffed. The promotional event featured the 16 captains of all the teams, and they stood beside their respective National flags for a photo shoot near River Thames river in London. The captains were also interviewed later.
The omission of the Ashoka Chakra comes as a huge surprise from the organizers of an event of such stature, who have otherwise made it the huge success it is.
What's next?
Whether or not the blunder has been brought to the notice of the organizers is not yet known. However, if corrective action is not taken soon and the Ashoka Chakra is not incorporated in other areas where the flag has to be put up, it will highly shameful for the management of such a big event. Such disregard has already hurt the sentiments of the Indian hockey fraternity and immediate action should ideally be taken to curb the damage further.
What action do you think the organizers should take now that the blunder has been made? Shoot off your opinions in the comments section below.
