"If you had asked this question like five years back, I would never believe that I will be a double medallist," says midfielder Hardik Singh when asked which of the two bronze medals he and the Indian men's hockey team won at consecutive Olympic Games was the tougher. It is a question made extraordinary by the history of Indian hockey at the Olympics. Not just the part where teams led by the likes of Dhyan Chand, Kishen Lal, KD Singh Babu and Balbir Singh Sr. dominated the Games to the point that they made a mockery of the other teams, but also the stunning and painful fall that came after that. A dry spell of medals that lasted more than four decades until it was ended by the team that included Hardik at Tokyo 2020.

At the next Games, the recently concluded Paris Olympics, India won another bronze. Suddenly, the team had won back-to-back Olympic medals for the first time since 1972—the last Games in which hockey was played on grass and the one that arguably marked the definitive end of India's dominance.

Bronze with a golden scar

However, this medal comes with an asterisk for Hardik. "It's a huge achievement. Still want to win the gold medal, that is the ultimate goal for me. We were just inches away from that. That is a scar that will be there for a long time. We have the 2026 World Cup and we will focus on that. We want to win the gold there," the 25-year-old, who was among the architects of some of India's most important wins in Paris, told Hindustan Times on a rainy day at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi.

He was arguably the best player for much of the semi-final against world champions Germany. India were generally the better team for much of the game but, as Hardik admits, Germany's execution was the difference. "For one day, we were in trauma," says Hardik about how the team felt after the match. The Indian players were visibly shell-shocked in the seconds after the hooter went off and left the score frozen at 3-2 in Germany's favour.

"I think we were the better team but they executed well. Sometimes that is the bad luck you have. But still, we knew the value of an Olympic medal. We had seen everyone in India go crazy after we won the medal in Tokyo. We were all very disappointed that we didn't qualify for the final but we knew we had one more chance," said Hardik. "Germany had lost to us in the bronze-medal match in Tokyo, then they won the World Cup and now they beat us here. So we just have to keep the belief, it's all part of the process."

And so that is how the Indian team picked themselves up. Two days later, they produced a masterclass to beat Spain 2-1 and clinch their second consecutive bronze medal. Hardik was, once again, at the heart of it all.

Parents in the stands

Cheering him from the stands were his parents. "My parents were there in Paris throughout, it was a really emotional thing for them and for me that they were there in every match. Mom toh meri ro rahi thi, jab hum lead karre the toh unko hota tha ki ye goal na khaa le, jab hum haar rahe hote hai toh unko hota tha ki ye zyada goal na khaa le. The security there asked her a number of times ki tu roti kyu hai aise? (My mother was crying all the time. When we were leading she was worried that we might concede, when we were trailing she was worried that we don't concede too many goals).

"This has been the case right from the beginning. Aadha match dekhenge, aadha match paath karenge. Ki Wahe Guru aisa kar do, jeeta do inko (She would be performing the paath for half of the match)."

'Medals belong to every Indian player from 2008 till now'

Hardik comes from hockey royalty. His father is former international Varinderpreet Singh Ray. He is the nephew of Gurmail Singh and Rajbir Kaur, a hockey power couple. Gurmail was part of the last Indian team to have won an Olympic gold. Kaur is among the most important figures in the history of Indian women's hockey and had won gold at the 1982 Asian Games. Hardik's paternal uncle Jugraj Singh was among the most feared drag flickers of his era.

In keeping with the hockey heritage that he comes from, Hardik has a keen sense of the importance of the generations of players that came in the years since the Indian team hit arguably its lowest point ever. The men's team had failed to qualify for the first time in Olympic history in 2008. "The credit for these medals that goes to all the players who were a part of the Indian team since then to 2021. They took the hard steps, not us," said Hardik.

"Jab qualify nahi hue toh itne saare cheezein unke baare me bola gaya tha, (So many things were said about them when they didn't qualify) and they would've heard these kinds of conversations everywhere they went on tour. But they didn't lose hope. It's not about the 16 of us; it's about the guys who were in the team from 2008 till now."

One of those players is PR Sreejesh, the goalkeeping bulwark of the Indian team who ended his illustrious career at these Olympics. "He saw what it feels to be 12th at the Olympics. That is a low point for any athlete," says Hardik, referring to the London Games, where India lost every match they played and conceded 15 goals. "You overcome that, you move on, you motivate the team. In 2016 you just about miss out on the semi-final. The Covid came, no idea if Olympics will happen or not and then you win a medal. That is the beautiful thing about sports, you never know."

The Fulton way

The bronze medal matches in Tokyo and Paris symbolise how India's style of play changed in the intervening years. With Australian Graham Reid as coach in 2021, goals were flying everywhere, and both India and Germany seemed to have decided that attack was the best form of defence. The result was a 5-4 scoreline in India's favour. At Paris 2024, under Graham Reid, Harmanpreet Singh scored twice in the 30th and 33rd minutes to help India take the lead from 1-0 down and India then protected it with all they had. A compact defence with less emphasis on pressing is the Fulton way, almost a polar opposite of how India used to play before the South African took over.

"When you have a coach like Fulton who backs you up in every match, trusting you, you don't have any choice but to give your best. Under Fulton we are saving a lot of energy by not going into a full press all the time. That gives you more energy to counter. When you have a defensive structure, then you have a trust over the course of a tournament that you can go (on the attack) more and more," said Hardik.

That trust in defence came in handy when India banished some demons of their past by beating Australia at the Olympics for the first time since 1972; a result that is a separate story all on its own. "We were really fed up," said Hardik about all this talk of Australia being a bogey for India. "The odds were completely against us. Everyone was saying Australia will beat us. But we knew that we could do it, we have our chances. They are one of the best teams ever but you just never know what can happen at the Olympics. The atmosphere is completely different. Whenever you play, if you try to do something different, this thing comes to mind that if it doesn't work then the next chance will come only four years later."

These quadrennial chances went begging for India for more than 40 years, but when they finally managed to take it, they did it twice in less than four years. Now that they have developed a taste for Olympic success, it wouldn't be a stretch for Hardik and the Indian team to work towards LA 2028 to heal the golden scar of Paris.

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