Indian women’s hockey team made history on Monday as they defeated Australia 1-0 to book their place in the semi-final for the first time in the Olympics.
Gurjit Kaur’s goal from a penalty corner in the second quarter was enough for India to win the quarter-final against Australia. The drag-flicker converted India’s lone penalty corner in the 22nd minute to surprise the Australians.
The Indian women’s team has made history by entering the knockout stages of the Olympics for the first time. The odds were totally against India as in world no 2 Australia, a mighty unbeaten opponent, awaited them.
India’s best performance in the Olympics came way back in the 1980 Moscow Games where they finished fourth out of six teams. In that edition of the Games, women’s hockey made its debut in the Olympics and the sport was played in a round-robin format with top two teams qualifying for the final.
The Indian women hockey team will play Argentina in the semifinal.
Earlier on Sunday, Indian Men’s Hockey team beat Great Britain 3-1 to reach the semi-finals in Tokyo Olympics. This happened for the first time in 49 years.
Forwards Dilpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh, and Hardik Singh scored for India. They will take on Belgium on Tuesday in the semifinal.
It is the first time that Indian men’s team have reached the semifinal of Olympic hockey competition since 1972 when they won a bronze in Munich as there were no semifinals played in Moscow, with the top-two teams in the preliminary league making it to the gold-medal match while the team that finished third and fourth contested for bronze.
