The Indian women's hockey team played out a hard-fought 1-1 draw against England in its opening match of the FIH World Cup in Amstelveen, The Netherlands, on Sunday.
A round-up of Sunday's action in the men's hockey World Cup, in Rourkela.
Sudhanshu Mittal's allegations on the 'illegality' of Narinder Batra's election have come amid the feud among the top brass of the IOA. He had earlier written to the International Olympic Committee, claiming that Batra was 'illegally' elected as IOA president.
With an impressive number of votes, 199,477, Rani Rampal was a clear winner of the Athlete of the Year race. Sports fans all over the world voted for their favourite during 20 days of polling in January. Over 705,610 votes were cast during the poll.
India dominated all throughout but their goal-scoring woes continued for the second match in a row.
India suffered an embarrassing 0-7 drubbing at the hands of defending champions Australia to settle for a silver medal
Rani Rampal led the team to historic victories in the Women's Asia Cup in 2017, silver at the 2018 Asian Games and played a critical role in the FIH Olympic Qualifiers in 2019 by scoring the deciding goal that helped India qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
Skipper Rani Rampal has been rested for next month's Women's Asian Champions Trophy and in her absence vice-captain Savita will lead an 18-strong Indian hockey team.
'I feel so fortunate to be part of this incredible group and yes, I do believe I have been lucky to have had such a great start to my international career.'
India have won eight Olympic gold medals in the past, but their last top finish came way back in 1980 Moscow Games.
The 19-year-old won the accolade ahead of Argentina's Maico Casella and Blake Govers of Australia, who finished second and third respectively.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is planning to have India and Pakistan play their home and away matches in Europe if the arch-rivals face off in the Olympic qualifying tournament for a berth at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Senior players like Manpreet Singh, Harmanpreet Singh and PR Sreejesh will give the tournament a miss.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday.
The hosts piled pressure on India with their structured attack and earned two penalty corners in the 5th and 7th respectively, but the Indian defence stood tall to deny them from scoring the second goal.
The other teams in India's pool are Spain, New Zealand and hosts Japan. The Pool B is made up of Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Canada and South Africa in the groupings announced by world governing body FIH on Saturday.
While all her teammates left for home after the junior camp ended on March 19, Suman decided to stay back at the SAI centre in Bengaluru with the senior sides and was stuck there for more than two and half months because of the nationwide lockdown.
With exactly a year to go for the deferred Tokyo Olympics, India hockey captains Manpreet Singh and Rani Rampal are confident of a good showing at the Games.
To play Spain in crossover for QF berth
The Indians were undone by a horrendous stopwatch faux pas by technical officials in the shoot-out against Australia
'I believe there will be some treatment (of coronavirus) by September or October this year. We (India) have to plan ourselves thinking that Olympics will be held.'
The Indian captain led from the front and pulled off as many as six saves in the shootout
Indian defence let in a goal just three minutes from the final hooter when Marta Segu scored from a rebound
The Pakistan Hockey Federation has threatened to pull out of next year's World Cup in India unless assured of "easy procurement" of visas and "top security" for its players at the event.
'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.
Star drag-flicket Gurjit Kaur made it 4-0 by converting a penalty corner in the 10th minute.
Will ask England to probe India's fixing attempt charge: FIH The complaint was lodged with the FIH after Indian team manager Jugraj Singh asked HI to take up the matter seriously with the FIH in his post-tournament report.
Mittal, in a letter to the FIH, has alleged that "a major cover up" was done to allow Batra to contest the election for the top sports job of the country. Batra offered a rebuttal in a communication to Bach.
Rising political tension has adversely affected the bilateral sporting ties between India and Pakistan but newly-elected FIH chief Narinder Batra on Saturday said the two nations will have to honour their international commitments. The tension at the border has cast a shadow over Pakistan's participation in the next month's FIH Junior World Cup in Lucknow but Batra's comments make it clear that the two neighbours are set to clash against each other on Indian soil.
A day after president Narinder Batra called for truce among the warring factions of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), Secretary General Rajeev Mehta also spoke in the same vein wanting to end the acrimony which he feels is hurting Indian sports.
India's men's hockey team chief coach Graham Reid has told his players to keep their emotions in check and avoid cards against a strong opponent like Belgium in the Tokyo Olympics semi-finals on Tuesday.
World champions Germany went one position up to replace Australia at the top
Olympic gold medallists The Netherlands defeated Australia 2-0 in the title showdown to clinch the women's hockey World Cup at the Kyocera Stadium in The Hague on Saturday.
Since hockey's introduction at Commonwealth Games 24 years ago, World No.1 Australia have been the most dominant force, having won all six gold medals till date.
Forward Shamsher Singh on Monday said winning the Olympic bronze medal was just ticking off one box in the new beginning for the Indian men's hockey team, which aspires to be the world number one side.
The team management in London was told that Sardar should come to Leeds for questioning by the Yorkshire police.
The Indian men's hockey team brought glory to the country when they ended a 41-year Olympic medal drought after defeating Germany 5-4 at the Tokyo Olympics to win the bronze medal in August.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is set to introduce drastic changes in the structure of global competitions with a new Global Hockey League (GHL) to be introduced in 2019 in place of the long-standing Champions Trophy, which will be scrapped.
Former South Africa batting all-rounder Farhan Behardien is hoping that the new COVID-19 variant, which is causing alarm here, will not jeopardise India's tour of the country next month as young cricketers of his nation need the series "more than ever".
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