"It Would've Been A Disaster If...": India Hockey Coach's Verdict On Olympics 2024 Bronze Medal

After guiding the Indian senior men's hockey team to a historic second successive bronze medal in the Paris Olympic Games, Craig Fulton, head coach, is now facing a new challenge. He has to drag back his players, who have been celebrating non-stop, to hockey and prepare them for the Asian Champions Trophy starting in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia in China from September 8 to 17. In an exclusive interview with IANS, Fulton shared his thoughts on the Paris campaign, the India team's performance and the upcoming challenges.

Excerpts:

Q: What is your assessment of the team's performance in the Paris Olympic Games? The team won a historic bronze medal but that was not the aim at the start as the team could have gone all way. So, how do you see the overall performance?

Fulton: Very successful, from, obviously taking the job with three months before the Asian Games to qualifying and then having just a year to prepare a team for the Olympic Games and then to get to the semifinals and push as hard as we did in the semifinals. It was very, very close to playing in the gold medal match and unfortunately, we couldn't find that extra goal or two. But we played really, really well. And then, you know, to pick ourselves back up and play a very strong Spanish team and to win the bronze was rewarding.

Of course, we wanted more. It would have been a disaster if we'd finished fourth, you know. So, I thought it was a successful campaign. We did a really good job in the Pool to make the quarterfinals after the first three games. We could have got something out of the Belgium game, which we narrowly lost 2-1, but we played well. And then the reward was after the five-match Test series loss in Australia, to win 3-2 in the last pool game, which