Both the men and women hockey teams of hosts India reached the doorstep of 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, registering comprehensive wins in the first of respective two-leg FIH Qualifiers here at Kalinga Stadium today. Indian women set up what turned out to be a memorable day for the country, trouncing lower-ranked United States of America 5-2, while Indian men prevailed over Russia 4-2.
In the men’s match, Mandeep Singh scored a brace for India (World Rank 5) and bagged the award as the Player of the match. His teammates Harmanpreet Singh and SV Sunil contributed one goal each. The Russians (World Rank 22), however, put up a good show this time, scoring twice through Andrey Kuraev and Semen Matkovskiy. This was the second meeting between the two nations with India registering a thumping 10-0 win in their first head-to-head clash here during the FIH World Cup earlier this year.