The Indian women’s hockey team has accomplished the impossible by defeating three-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion Australia. This is undoubtedly one of the biggest upsets of the decade.
After defeating Australia in the quarter-finals, India’s women’s hockey team advanced to their first-ever semi-finals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
A tenacious performance by the Indian women’s hockey team saw one of the greatest comebacks in the sport unfold, as the team will now fight for a medal for the first time in their history at the 32nd Games.
It took just one goal from Gurjit Kaur to give the Indians victory against three-time Olympic champions, who had won all five of their previous matches. Her goal in the 22nd minute was enough for the Indian team to defeat the Australian team and advance to their first-ever Olympics semi-final. India played solid defence in all three quarters, denying seven Australian penalty corners from scoring.
After facing a stiff fight in the first three quarters to give a brilliant performance in last quarter:
The quarter-final match of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 between India and Australia’s women’s hockey team was played on the North pitch of the OI Hockey Stadium. The first quarter of the match saw stiff rivalry from both the teams, and none of the teams managed to score. However, India took a 1-0 lead over Australia at half-time after the second quarter ended. Gurjit Kaur scored a goal for India.
No team managed to score in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter also, there was no goal from both the teams. Still, the last few minutes of the game in the fourth quarter were exciting, with goalkeeper Savita Punia scoring a brilliant performance for India to stop the penalty goal of the Australian side, and India won 1-0. With this, the team managed to reach the semi-finals for the first time in the Olympic Games history.
Our girls wrote the history:
For the first time in history, the Indian women’s team has advanced to the Olympic semi-finals. As a team, they finished fourth out of six in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The Indian women’s team will now try to win their first Olympic medal.
After three losses, India rallied back to win the match:
For India, this is the most incredible Olympic performance in women’s hockey since the 1980 Olympics when they finished the group stage at fourth place with six points. In this Olympics also, the Indian women’s hockey team has lost three straight defeats against The Netherlands (3-0), Germany (3-0), and Great Britain (3-0). When Britain beat Ireland 2-0 in the quarter-finals, it fixed the berth of the semi-final for the Indian team allowing them into the semi-finals. But after this, India dramatically bounced back and defeated Ireland and South Africa in the following rounds.
[…] Major Dhyan Chand has been widely regarded for bringing India three Olympic gold medals and scoring as many as 1000 goals on the field over a two-decade career from 1926 to 1948. He has been an iconic personality in international hockey. […]