2021: A watershed year for Indian women's hockey

2021 has been a watershed year for Indian women's hockey. The Indian team reached a high of a historic fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics, ascending to the best-ever FIH World Rankings and winning FIH Hockey Stars Awards in all categories.

2021 was nothing short of a fairytale for the Indian women's hockey team. The Indian women's team became the first of India's hockey teams to return to international hockey after a pandemic-enforced hiatus disrupted the calendar.

The team began the Olympic year 2021 with tours to Argentina and Germany. After spending the following months at the Sports Authority Center in Bengaluru, the Indian women's hockey team embarked on their historic Olympic campaign.

The Indian women's hockey team did not have a great start to their Olympic sojourn. They started the campaign with three losses and managed to scrape through to the quarter-finals.

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The quarter-final was what dreams were made of. The Indian women's hockey team ticked all the boxes as they pulled off arguably one of the biggest upsets in world hockey as they defeated Australia 1-0.

However, they missed out on an Olympic medal by a whisker as they narrowly lost both the semi-finals and the bronze medal classification matches against Argentina and Great Britain, respectively.

Accolades and awards for the Indian women's hockey team

The high of the Tokyo Olympics was followed by accolades and awards. Their historic and heart-winning performance at the prestigious quadrennial Games meant the Indian women's hockey team were one of the favorites at the FIH Hockey Stars Awards in all categories.

Dragflicker Gurjit Kaur won the FIH Women's Player of the Year award, Goalkeeper Savita Punia won the FIH Women's Goalkeeper of the Year award, Sharmila Devi clinched the FIH Women's Rising Star of the Year award, and former Indian Women's Hockey Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne was awarded the FIH Coach of the Year.

Members of the Indian women's hockey team were conferred with national awards in November 2021. Skipper Rani was honored with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian award, while experienced forward Vandana Katariya and midfielder Monika were conferred with the Arjuna awards.

A rare blip in an otherwise fruitful year was the Asian Champions Trophy in Donghae, South Korea. The Indian women's hockey team entered the tournament as favorites, but the dreaded coronavirus played a spoilsport, with one member of the Indian team testing positive for COVID-19.

The entire Indian team had to be quarantined, as per the protocol, and had to pull out of the tournament after playing just one match.

The Indian women's hockey team, who had also achieved their highest-ever FIH world ranking (world no. 8) in August, will end the year in ninth spot as per the latest FIH World rankings.

As the shorter Olympic cycle, looking at Paris 2024, has commenced, the Indian women's hockey team will draw a lot of inspiration from their performances in 2021 and will be gunning for glory in a packed season that includes the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.