India endured a medal-less outing at the Youth Olympics after the gold rush of the previous three days as the women's hockey team lost to Argentina and rising table tennis player Archana Kamath went down in the bronze medal match in Buenos Aires.
The selection trials will now be held on May 17 and 18.
'I play in the present without thinking about the buzz in the background,' says Vivek Sagar Prasad, who has just won the FIH Rising Star of the Year award.
'Shahid was an artist, the kind who treated the hockey pitch as his own canvas.'
India are a formidable hockey side in their own den but if the erstwhile giants of the game want to play in their second consecutive Commonwealth Games final they will need to overcome challenges away from home, feels Australia hockey legend Jamie Dwyer.
The Spaniards won the Pool A match in the men's hockey World Cup 3-1.
Australian hockey ace Ric Charlesworth will join New Zealand Cricket as its high performance manager.
India missed chances galore and had to settle for a goalless draw against Australia in their second match of the 22nd Lal Bahadur Shastri Under-21 Four-Nation Women's hockey tournament, in Delhi, on Wednesday.
After a dismal eighth place finish in Rio Games, much is expected from the Manpreet-led side.
With three wins and a draw, India are currently leading the six-team league table with 10 points and a goal difference of eight.
Captain Manpreet Singh and goalkeeper P R Sreejesh are among a few senior India players rested for next month's Olympic hockey test event in Tokyo. Besides Manpreet and Sreejesh, defender Surender Kumar was also rested.
The Indians eventually lost the semi-final 0-3 in the shootout after both teams were tied 1-1 at the end of regulation time as the crowd booed the technical officials for the decision.
Former hockey Olympians Dung Dung and Manohar Topno rued the weakness of surrendering healthy leads.
The 12th edition of hockey's showpiece event at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium produced 199 goals from 38 matches, ncluding the classification games, at an average of 5.24 goals per match.
Australia retained the men's hockey World Cup crown after outplaying Olympic silver medallists The Netherlands 6-1 in the final at the Kyocera Stadium in The Hague on Sunday. Chris Cirielo's three penalty-corner conversions was the feature of the contest that saw Australia retain the trophy they won in New Delhi in 2010.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday.
India's chances of progressing to the semi-finals of the women's hockey event in the Commonwealth Games received a setback after the home team went down fighting 1-2 to defending champions Australia in their second Pool A match in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Sakshi Dhoni was seen cheering her husband's team Ranchi Rays during a Hockey Indian League match.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday stepped up its protest against Rahul Gandhi for his 'panauti' jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged the Election Commission to take action against the Congress leader.
India will seek to end 43 years of hurt when they begin the Hockey World Cup campaign against South Africa on Wednesday.
The FIH has responded by introducing a number of changes to the way hockey will be played and broadcast at the Rio Games. Those include a move to 15-minute quarters and scheduling more time for television replays and analysis to showcase players' virtuoso skills with a ball moving at more than 160 kilometres an hour, Fairweather said. For the first time in Olympic competition, the Rio hockey tournament will also feature quarter-finals, making it the last team sport to adopt the format at the Games.
India suffered their second straight defeat in the men's hockey World Cup, going down 2-5 to Spain in a fast-paced Pool B encounter at the Major Dhyan Chand National stadium in Delhi on Thursday night. It was another humiliating defeat for the hosts after the mauling by Australia by a similar margin.
Rani Rampal will captain an 18-strong Indian women's team, while experienced goalkeeper Savita will shoulder the duties of vice-captain at next month's Commonwealth Games
Legendary Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans feels that although Indian hockey team has improved by "leaps and bounds", it needs to regularly play against powerhouses like Australia, Holland and Germany in order to become a force to reckon with.
On-field achievements often jostled for space with off-field drama as Indian hockey endured a rollercoaster year during which the players scripted historical feats but coach Paul van Ass' acrimonious ouster and Gurbaj Singh's suspension created its share of storm.
Bruised and battered by Australia, India will have to regroup their forces when they take on Spain in a crucial Pool B encounter of the hockey World Cup in New Delhi on Thursday.
The Indian hockey teams at the Olympics are facing a shortage of chairs and Television sets at the Games Village and chief coach Roelant Oltmans has complained that the players' apartments are not properly furnished. In a letter to Chef de Mission of the Indian contingent Rakesh Gupta, Oltmans complained about unfurnished accommodation provided to both the men's and women's hockey teams. "The apartments of the Rio Olympics are not furnished properly," Oltmans, who is also the High Performance Director of Indian hockey, wrote in his letter.
With an eye on the future, Hockey India's selectors made as many as seven changes from the squad that finished a disappointing 12th and last at the London Olympics.
Uncertainty hovered over Indian team's halfback SV Sunil's participation in the quarterfinals after he sustained an injury during its last men's hockey Pool B game against Canada at the Rio Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. India were dealt a big blow when Sunil was stretchered off the pitch after he suffered an injury by crashing against the sign boards while pressing for an attack during the match against Canada.
India has been named as one of five confirmed teams for the men's Champions Trophy hockey tournament in Melbourne later this year, thereby ending the nation's six-year wait for a comeback to the prestigious event.
Indian hockey team suffered their first defeat on their Australia-New Zealand tour when they went down 3-5 against Australian Development squad at the State Hockey Centre in Brisbane, on Tuesday night.
World champions Australia rallied from a two-goal deficit to prevail 4-3 over Olympic gold medallists Germany to bolster their position in the 36th Hero Champions Trophy hockey tournament at the Lee Valley Hockey Centre.
Indian men's hockey team had their date with history as they clinched a maiden appearance in the final of the prestigious 36th Hero Champions Trophy Hockey tournament against formidable Australia after hosts Great Britain held Belgium to 3-3 draw in a final round robin match.
The Olympic hockey tournament will be a race for records in Athens as the Dutch men and Australian women strive to win their third gold medals in a row.
'The Asian Games is the first step towards achieving that goal. We want to have a shot at the podium in 2020 Tokyo and the Asian Games will set the tone for our preparation towards that.'
Belgium won a tense penalty shootout 3-2 against three-times champions Netherlands to win their first men's hockey World Cup title.
The 2005 edition of the elite nations' tournament will be staged in Chennai.\n\n
World champions Australia outplayed Pakistan 7-0 to ease into the semi-finals of the Olympic Games men's hockey competition, while The Netherlands also stormed into the last four stage with an all-win record after spiking South Korea 4-2.
Hockey greats Vasudevan Baskaran, M M Somaya and Mervyn Fernandis relive India's gold medal-winning campaign at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
London 2012 officials have defended the preparation of the Olympic hockey pitch after one of Australia's players picked up an injury on the artificial blue surface that ruled him out of the Games.
