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[Guest]

Forget Sydney, cheer for India’s unsung hockey heroines

<!--emo&:ind--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/india.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='india.gif' /><!--endemo--> , our girls win.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> But the happiest sports picture was at National Stadium here, where the hockey team — which had slipped off the national sporting radar, and dipped in form, since winning the Commonwealth gold in 2002 — celebrated long and hard their stunning success in the Asia Cup.

And as they celebrated, the players — who’ve had to put up with various indignities as fighting for water to wash their clothes and, during this tournament, staying six to a room — remembered their struggle.

Team captain Suraj Lata Devi maintained a dignified silence when asked about the team’s struggles. ‘‘We are concerned about the game. The accommodation or other problems of the players is the concern of the federation and officials,’’ she said.

And as they celebrated, there followed the same ugly scenes visible at all Indian sports functions: officials jumping on the bandwagon, desperate for a place in the photo frame. The Indian Women’s Hockey Federation, which made a profit of around Rs 30 lakh from this tournament, had put up the players in dormitories rooms at the Nehru Stadium.

Minister of state for sports Vijay Goel, who did nothing to improve the team’s accommodation, was among the first to compliment the players on their success.
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Do not let the actions of the bureaucracy and netagiri take the sheen away from the victory. Go India.