~As a part of the 100 years celebrations, Hockey India speaks with former India Ladies’s Hockey Workforce Captain on one of many greatest moments in Indian ladies’s hockey historical past~
New Delhi, 8 Might 2025: As Hockey India celebrates 100 years of the game, former India Ladies’s Hockey Workforce Captain Pritam Siwach mirrored on the outstanding journey of Indian Ladies’s Hockey Workforce and credited the 1998 Asian Video games silver medal as a significant turning level.
“We knew that for many people, the 1998 Asian Video games can be our final main occasion and that we’d retire after that. We hadn’t gained a medal in 13 years and didn’t wish to retire with out one. So, for 2 years main as much as the Asian Video games, we centered on each little element to make sure we returned with a medal,” Pritam recalled.
She went on to say, “As quickly as we gained that silver, we knew it was the turning level for ladies’s hockey in India. The graph has solely gone upward since then.”
Pritam added that the workforce’s laborious work for the 1998 Asian Video games paid off and laid the muse for future successes, together with the silver medal on the 1999 Asia Cup and the historic gold on the 2002 Commonwealth Video games.
She additionally credited Hockey India and the federal government for ushering in a brand new period for ladies’s hockey. “Rather a lot has modified for the gamers since my time within the Indian workforce. Immediately, the ladies’s workforce has entry to improved services and a powerful assist system that we didn’t have again then. The gamers at this time are extraordinarily proficient and profit from grassroots improvement packages, sports activities science, extra teaching workers, trainers, and even psychologists—assets that have been unavailable in our enjoying days.”
When requested about passing the torch to the subsequent era and paving the trail for the subsequent 100 years of Indian hockey, Pritam stated, “I think about myself very fortunate that my youngsters are additionally enjoying hockey. Only a few dad and mom who’ve performed at a sure stage get the chance to contribute to shaping the subsequent era.”
Pritam believes the Indian Ladies’s Hockey Workforce has a really brilliant future and, with the fitting focus and assist, can obtain Olympic success.
“If our males’s workforce can win an Olympic medal, so can our ladies’s workforce. Our subsequent main aim ought to be to win gold on the Asian Video games to safe qualification for the Olympic Video games. With the sturdy grassroots expertise we’ve got and the continued work on the state and SAI NCOE stage, I’m assured we will obtain this.”
By her academy, Pritam has been actively empowering the subsequent era of hockey gamers. Over time, she has nurtured and skilled a number of Indian nationwide gamers, together with Olympians Neha and Nisha, and promising junior skills corresponding to Jyoti, Sakshi Rana, and her daughter Kanika Siwach.
