New Delhi: The Indian women's hockey team on Sunday created history by winning the bronze medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022.
India defeated defending champions New Zealand 2-1 in a shootout in the bronze medal match.
Interestingly, this is the third medal overall in India's Commonwealth Games history. Prior to this, India had won gold in the year 2002, while in the year 2006, the Indian team had managed to clinch silver.
This is India's 41st medal in the current Commonwealth Games.
The Indian team was leading 1-0 in the final moments of the match, however, it does not last long as in less than the last 30 seconds, they gave a penalty corner to the opposing team following which Olivia Merry of New Zealand equalized the score and later the match was drawn into a shoot-out.
However, India won the shoot-out and won the medal. In this match, India showed a quality game after the loss against Australia.
Earlier, the Indian team was knocked out of the gold medal match by Australia 3-0 in a shootout in the semi-finals. In 2002, India became the champion by defeating England in the final, while in 2006 India was defeated by Australia in the final.
The team's breakthrough performance came at the Women's Hockey World Cup at Mandelieu in 1974, where it finished in 4th place. Their best performance in the Olympic Games was at 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics where they came in 4th when a women's event was held for the first time in Olympic history.
The team also won the Gold medal at the inaugural 1982 Asian Games held in New Delhi, defeating Korea in the finals.
Captain Suraj Lata Devi led the team to the Gold for three consecutive years at different events- during the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
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