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HT This Day: July 30, 1980 -- India regain hockey gold after 16 years
The national tricolour fluttered at the Olympic Games here today as India regained the hockey title after a lapse of 16 years.
The national tricolour fluttered at the Olympic Games here today as India regained the hockey title after a lapse of 16 years.
As the flag rose to the strains of “Jana Gana Mana”, the large number of Indians here had every reason to feel proud of their team’s 4-3 victory in a thrilling final against Spain at the Dynamo Stadium.
The pride was greater as the team received the cherished gold medal from Ashwini Kumar, for a longtime president of the Indian Hockey Federation and recently elected to the executive committee of the International Olympic Committee Kumar was escorted by the president of the International Hockey Federation. Mr Rene Frank.
It was a hard-earned victory for India who led 2-0 at the break. The Spaniards fought tooth and nail till the last moment and ending their fight was their crack corner specialist Juan Amat who achieved a hat-trick.
The Spaniards were a determined lot, but it was the Indians who struck first. The first two goals were scored by centre-forward Surinder Singh Sodhi from a penalty stroke and a long-corner After the break. outside-right Kaushik increased the lead to 3-0.
The Indian march forward was halted at this stage, though temporarily, as Spain came back into the game with a bang in less than a minute, Amat converted a penaly-corner and a long corner to put his team dangerously close to India.
But one had not reckoned pith the outstanding inside-left Shahid who gave India their fourth goal. That was a vital one as, during the last five minutes, Amat struck again for Spain’s third goal.
India survived the Spanish blitzkrieg for the rest of the time and claimed the gold medal which they had last bagged at Tokyo way back in 1964.
India had the greater of the exchanges as the match began Spain had a close shave when, off a Devinder Singh pass in the fifth minute, Kaushik dodged past the defenders only to be blocked by goalkeeper Garcia.
In less than a minute, it was Kaushik again and once more Garcia came in his way. With the Indians in top form, the Spaniards, already a tense lot, started getting rough and their right winger, Chaves, was warned by umpire Gillet.
In the 24th minute, Shahid, the man behind most of India’s fine moves, got a pass from Zafar Iqbal only to be obstructed by a defender. As a result. India got their first penalty-corner.
While Devinder was taking the shot, he was charged at by a defender. In the confusion, the ball lay untouched. So Devinder had another crack at it. This time Garcia pushed the ball away with his palm to concede a penalty-stroke and Sodhi did the job of putting India in the lead.
Shahid and Kaushik continued to harass the Spanish defence Their efforts bore fruit in the 30th minute through India’s third long-corner. This time, Bhaskaran put the ball through to Sodhi who found the target with a nice placement.
At the receiving end till then, Spain forced a penalty-corner and two long-corners in the last three minutes before the breather.
A Shahid-Zafar move culminated in Sodhi missing the ball and in the 42nd minute, Zafar was off again from a Shahid pass.
But this time Garcia deflected it out for India’s seventh long-corner, another fruitful one. Once again, Bhaskaran acted cleverly in passing the ball to Kaushik and the right winger dribbled his way through to find the Spanish goal.
The Spaniards’ fate was seemingly sealed when two lightning penalty-corner shots by veteran Amat produced two goals and the game was alive again. Spain put considerable pressure against India and it was largely the act of providence that the score was not levelled.
However, Shahid was in irresistible form and he pounced on rebound from a melee and shocked a packed Spanish defence with a goal.
Spain forced ano1her penalty corner and Amat duly completed his hat-trick. But luck favoured India as further attempts by him to get Spain’s life-saver ended in failures.
INDIA : Bir Bahadur Chhetri Sylvanus Dung Dung and Davinder Singh; Somaiah, Ravinder Pal Singh and Bhaskaran; Maharaj Kishen Kaushik, Mervyn Fernandes. Surinder Singh Sodhi, Mohd Shahid and Zafar Iqbal.
SPAIN: Jose Garcia; Juan Amat, Santiago Malgosa and Javier Cabot, Racardo Cabot, Francisco Fafregas and Juan Arbos (Luis Coghen) and Carlos Roca; Jaime Arbos, Rafael Garralda and Miguel Chaves.
UMPIRES : Bob Davidson (Holland) and Lovis Gillet (France).
