The Indian women’s hockey team was exceptional at the Tokyo Olympics as they reached the semifinals and missed the bronze medal only by a whisker. Their biggest high from the Summer Games was when they won 1-0 against three time Gold medallists Australia in the quarterfinals.

However, the Indian eves lost against Argentina in the semifinals and then lost the bronze medal match against Great Britain. Indian women’s hockey team midfielder Salima Tete, who was an integral part of the Indian women’s team’s rise to the top in this summer games. Despite not finishing on the podium, Tete feels that the future of women’s hockey in the country is very bright.

“Our performance in Tokyo is slowly starting to sink in now. We were really dejected when we lost to Great Britain in the Bronze Medal match, but now we are seeing the positives from the tournament. We may not have won a Medal, but we have certainly gained a lot of confidence from the way we played in Tokyo and it’s definitely going to help us to grow as a team and produce much better results in the future,” said Salima Tete.

The 19-year-old midfielder showed tremendous composure and grit to represent the country on such a big stage. She was thankful for the opportunity to play at the Olympics at such a young age.

“The Olympic Games is the biggest tournament for any sports person and I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity of performing for my country at the biggest of stages. I have learned a lot by playing in high-pressure situations and I am certainly going to use my learnings in the upcoming competitions. One learns a lot when one is against the best and we are very happy with the way we gave a tough fight to each of our opponents in the knock-out stage of the Tokyo Games,” said Salima Tete.

Tete felt that India showed great heart and created a lot of goal scoring chances against many superior teams and that is something that allowed the Indian eves to perform exceedingly well. “We always found a way to push the ball forward and attack our opponents in the Olympics. We created many goal-scoring opportunities and ensured that we utilized our Penalty Corners well. And also we gave everything we had on the pitch and never gave up, no matter what the situation was. The never-give-in attitude helped us to stay in the moment and keep fighting against our opponents until the final whistle was blown,” the 19-year-old concluded.