Harmanpreet Singh and Manpreet Singh
On the strength of PR Sreejesh’s brilliant defence and Harmanpreet Singh’s leadership, the Indian hockey team created history in the Paris Olympics. The Indian team was successful in achieving a podium finish in back to back Olympics after 52 years. India won its second consecutive bronze medal in hockey. Earlier, the Indian team had won two consecutive bronze medals in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. Harmanpreet Singh captained the Indian team brilliantly in the Paris Olympics and was the top scorer with 11 goals. Whenever the Indian team got a penalty corner, Captain Harman, popularly known as Sarpanch, took the responsibility of scoring goals and scored goals for the team on most occasions.
After this historic victory, Harmanpreet thanked the countrymen for their support and appealed to support hockey as much as possible. The captain said, “I request everyone to please support hockey as much as possible. I promise every Indian that we will work hard and perform better in the next Olympics.”
full match status
Talking about this bronze medal match played between India and Spain, both the teams could not open their account in the first 15 minutes. In the second quarter, Spain got a penalty stroke in the 18th minute on which Miralles opened his team’s account. India got the first penalty corner of the match in the 28th minute but Harman missed to equalize. Halftime was about to end when India got a penalty corner a few seconds before which the captain took advantage of and scored a goal to equalize the match for India.
In the first half, the Indian team started attacking rapidly and got a penalty corner in the third minute itself. This time too Harmanpreet did wonders and put India ahead 2-1. After this, Spain tried its best to make a comeback but could not break the wall of veteran PR Sreejesh and India got the bronze medal in hockey.