"Failing to qualify for Paris Olympics was really heartbreaking": India women's hockey team captain Savita Punia

India women's team's hopes to secure a berth in Paris ended following their 0-1 defeat to Japan in the FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers last month. The top three hockey teams from the eight-nation tournament could secure a spot at the upcoming Olympics. Along with Japan, the USA and Germany sealed their spots for the Summer Games.

"It is definitely not easy. After the Tokyo Olympics, we were going step by step and were performing well in the Asian Cup and Commonwealth Games. If I talk about 10 years before we used to penetrate the opposition's circle once or twice and we were able to earn one of two penalty corners. But today we match them and even create more opportunities than our opponents. Failing to qualify for the Paris Olympics was really heartbreaking for us," Savita told ANI at the RevSportz's Trailblazers 2.0 Conclave.

After India failed to qualify for the Paris Olympics, Janneke Schopman, Chief Coach of the Indian women's Hockey Team, recently resigned from her post. She had taken charge from former chief coach Sjoerd Marine under whose leadership India finished in a historic fourth position at the Tokyo Olympics.

After Schopman's departure, long-serving CEO of Hockey India, Elena Norman resigned from her post after holding the position for nearly 13 years. During her regime, the Indian men's and women's hockey teams soared to great heights, achieving career-best world rankings as well as a historic feat in the Tokyo Olympic Games where the Indian Men clinched a Bronze medal ending a 41-year-long medal drought while the women finished at an unprecedented fourth position.

Under her leadership, the Federation hosted two consecutive editions of the FIH Men's Hockey World Cup in 2018 and 2023, two FIH Junior Men's World Cup in 2016 and 2021 and also successfully hosted five editions of the Hockey India League, a franchise-based league that catapulted the performance of Indian men's hockey team with youngsters getting to rub shoulders with some of the most elite global hockey stars. (ANI)