Tokyo Olympics 2020: India create history, win hockey medal admin Aug,6 2021 India have ended their 41-year wait for a hockey medal at the Tokyo Olympics. They beat four-time champions Germany 5-4 in a nail-biter of a bronze medal match on Thursday to win their first Games medal since the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Simranjeet Singh scored two field goals while Harmanpreet Singh and Hardik Singh scored from penalty corners. India went 3-1 down and then came back to level 3-3, all in the second quarter. Rupinder Pal Singh converted a penalty stroke which gave India the lead and completed their comeback after which Simranjeet scored their fifth. This is India’s third bronze medal at the Olympics. They last won a bronze in the 1972 Munich Olympics. India are the most successful team at the Olympics in men’s hockey with eight gold medals. India were looking down and out when they went 3-1 down in the 24th minute as a relentless Germany piled pressure on the eight-time champions. However, India kept their eyes open for counter-attacking opportunities. Harmanpreet was unable to convert a PC that India got two minutes after they went 3-1 down. They got another two minutes later and this time, Hardik Singh converted to halve Germany’s lead. Harmanpreet then converted a PC in the 29th minute and India equalised just four minutes after going 3-1 down. At half-time, the score was, incredibly, 3-3. India seemed to start at where they left off in the third quarter and forced a penalty stroke. Rupinder made no mistakes with his strike and India took the lead. Five minutes later, Simranjeet scored his second of the match three minutes later to make it 5-3 in India’s favour, which remained the score at the end of the third quarter.
