2024: Indian hockey's year of resurgence
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Go hard, boys, go hard!" P.R. Sreejesh’s booming voice cut right through the heavy beats of the Punjabi hip-hop song blaring through the speakers of the spacious, well-equipped gym at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Then Sreejesh strode to a bar loaded with 80 kilos worth of plates to rep some fierce deadlifts with perfect form, earning a roar of approval from the 20-odd players of the Indian hockey team at the gym.
Sreejesh smiled—a trademark ear-to-ear grin that has lit up Indian hockey for nearly two decades. “Don’t go by the smile," he said. “It’s just a few months to the Paris Olympics, so what we are doing right now is giving everything we have to ensure we are absolutely ready.
Today I was out on the turf for almost four hours in the heat. Now I’m in the gym. It’s non-stop…all the way to the Olympics!" Non-stop.
That’s not a bad phrase to describe the year that Indian hockey had in 2024. Saturated with action and emotion, a big high and a dismal low, and a hopeful resurrection of an event that may change the game worldwide to bring the year to a close. The big high, of course, was that India won the bronze at the Paris Olympics in August, the team’s first back-to-back Olympic medals (after the bronze in Tokyo 2020) in 50 years—the last time India won successive medals was Mexico 1968 and Munich 1972. It was not just the medal, but the way in which it was won that made this a special year for the Indian men’s team.
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