- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
REPRESENTING the country at the Olympic Games is any sportsperson’s dream and for hockey midfielder Neha Goyal, it is no exception. The 24-year-old from the northern Indian state of Haryana is part of the Indian national hockey team which will compete at the Tokyo Olympics starting July 23. Prior to her departure for Japan for the quadrennial show, Goyal has promised the supporters that she would do her best to ensure that her team does well.
It is only the third time that India will see its women’s hockey team playing at the Olympics. The first time they played was in Moscow in 1980 when they finished fourth and then in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 where they finished a poor 12th.
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For Neha, the journey to the national hockey team playing at the Olympics has not been easy. She escaped a violent domestic environment to pursue hockey. She lived with her family in shabby conditions in Sonepat in Haryana. Her mother worked as a daily wage earner in a cycle factory where she got a meagre Rs 2,000 ($27) a month while her father was jobless and would often return home in a drunk state and cause violence.
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Goyal’s mother sent her to play hockey thinking that the hockey ground would be safer for her than home. It paid off as the young woman was enrolled at a modest set-up run by former Indian national women’s hockey captain Pritam Siwaich, who gave Goyal two full meals a day against the promise that she would continue to play hockey.
The expert in Siwaich had spotted the talent in Goyal. “Neha was 11 when I spotted her loitering near the ground every day. She didn’t speak a lot. So one day, I gave her a skipping rope. She showed a lot of stamina so I thought, ‘why not try to teach her hockey?’” she told the media.
Siwaich wanted to meet Goyal’s parents to convince them to send their daughter to play hockey but she said Goyal was “embarrassed” to invite her home.
“It was basically just one very small, dimly lit room. If you took 10 small steps, you’d hit a wall,” Siwach told The Indian Express.
She and her husband Kuldeep, also a player-turned-coach, took to give Goyal full backing and she did not let them down. She was picked for the 18-member Indian team for the 2018 World Cup in London. In the very opening game, Goyal scored against hosts England to give India a lead though the match ended in a draw.
Now, all eyes are on Goyal in Tokyo.
India will take on the Netherlands in their opening game on July 24.
