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Indian women miss out on Olympic berth in Hockey
India last played in Tokyo where they missed out on the bronze.
Indian women failed to equalize a lone goal by Japan / X/@DilipTirkey
Disappointments were galore as India supported by a strong home crowd missed several scoring opportunities to go down fighting 0-1 to Japan and bow out of contention for a berth in the Paris Olympic Hockey qualifiers for women.
Earlier, the hosts lost to Germany 3-4 in the penalty shootout of the semi-finals at Ranchi but got another chance with Japan to secure the third qualifying position.
The USA, Germany, and Japan qualified for the Paris Olympics as the top three teams from the event. India last played in the 2020 (Tokyo) and Rio (2016) Olympic Games. The women missed a bronze medal in Tokyo.
Only a couple of months ago, India had beaten both Japan and China to win the Asian Champions Trophy for women at the same Ranchi venue.
Interestingly, while the Indian women are coached by a Dutch coach Janneke Schopman, the Japanese are trained by an expatriate Indian and Olympian Jude Menezes.
Japanese played their hearts out in the first half, making Indians jittery and panicky. The initial offensive paid dividends as the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games champions took the all-important lead in the sixth minute through a penalty corner conversion.
India had too many penalty corners. In the last quarter, desperate for an equalizer, Indian girls were all over their opponents' territory but failed to get the elusive goal, the equalizer.
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