‘This medal is for frontline workers’
TOKYO: Inspired by two former India captains Pargat Singh and Sardar Singh, Manpreet Singh has waited for three Olympics to fulfil not just his dream but also of his idols. Hailing from Mithapur village in Punjab, the talisman of the Indian team finally realised what he set out for since he debuted in 2011. After Thursday’s win, he spoke about the experience. Excerpts
Main toh wahin pe let gaya (I just lay down where I stood). I had no words. The way the team played after being 1-3 down was amazing. Poora jaan de rahe the (we fought with all our heart). We’ve sacrificed so much just to be here, in the bronze medal play-off, that we had made up our mind we wanted to be on the podium. Just look at the last one year. We’ve been in SAI Bengaluru with guys staying away from their families for major parts of the year. Look at Sreejesh, who has been away from his wife and kids for so long.
How did you pick yourself up after the 7-1 defeat against Australia?
I was really heartbroken. That time Rupinderpal came to me and said, ‘wait for 5 August. We will take a medal from here.’ Today, when I met Bob (Rupinder) after the medal, the first thing I did was remind him of that conversation. Our aim was to make the final, but still bronze at an Olympics is a big deal.
We had decided that if we win a medal, we will dedicate it to our frontline workers. We also want to dedicate it to members of the police forces, and our army. All of them have been relentlessly and selflessly working during the pandemic. They’ve saved so many lives.
Take us through the match, the fight you put up after trailing for the first part...
Germany are considered to have one of the best defences in the world. Scoring against them is difficult. We were 1-3 down. We didn’t give up. We kept telling ourselves that these 60 minutes will not come back. Even when I would go on the bench, people would remind me of this. We didn’t want to experience that regret once we returned that we couldn’t win a medal. Didn’t want that ‘what if’ when the match was over. When I would go to the bench, Shamsher (Singh) would tell me, “paaji hum log karenge (we will do it).”
We had to work a lot to fix our last-minute errors. We were very, very committed to the ideology that if we lost games, we would not blame anyone. We lost as a team, we won as a team.