(Harendra Singh has been the head coach of India’s men’s, women’s and junior hockey team.The column first appeared in the print edition of The Indian Express on August 5, 2021)
- If I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man at peace with myself. I have seen Indian hockey get an Olympic medal, what more can I want? I remember the pain of Sydney 2000 when we lost to unfancied Poland in the dying seconds and lost out on the medal. I was the assistant coach and remember the tears in the changing room. Dhanraj Pillai, Jude Menezes, the goalkeeper who couldn’t forget the thud sound of the ball crashing into the board behind him for years to come, Dilip Tirkey, Ramandeep Singh, Baljit Saini, Mukesh Kumar — everyone was broken…
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