The Indian women's hockey team made history when they achieved their best-ever result (fourth place) at the Olympic Games in Tokyo earlier this month and one of the players who played a crucial role in India's excellent outing at the Games was young forward Sharmila Devi. For her incredible efforts at the Tokyo Olympics, Sharmila Devi has been nominated for the FIH Women's Rising Star of the Year Award 2019-2020.
The 19-year-old made several brilliant runs during the tournament and put pressure on the opposition to create many goal-scoring opportunities. The forward also scored a goal in India's pool stage match against Great Britain.
Speaking about being nominated for the prestigious award, Sharmila said, "It's a great honour to be nominated for the FIH Women's Rising Star of the Year Award 2019-2020. It feels fantastic when your efforts and performances are recognized. I have always played to help my team win and we have always believed in collective efforts, therefore this nomination is a testament to the way the entire team has played in the last year and especially at the Tokyo Games."
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Monday revealed the shortlists for the FIH Hockey Stars Awards 2020-21, in the Women's and Men's Player, Goalkeeper, Rising Star and Coach of the Year categories. With no Hockey Stars Awards in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 global health pandemic on the international calendar, this year's awards cover the period from January 2020 through to the conclusion of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, meaning that the 2020-21 edition of the FIH Hockey Pro League has been very much taken into consideration.
Sharmila also congratulated her teammates' defender Gurjit Kaur and goalkeeper Savita for being nominated for the FIH Women's Player of the Year Award and FIH Women's Goalkeeper of the Year Award respectively.
"The fact that we have made the shortlist of all the categories of FIH Hockey Stars Awards 2020-21 shows that each department of the team is contributing to the team's success on the field. Gurjit scored some crucial goals for us in the knockout stages, the one against Australia in the quarter-final being the most important goal and Savita made many brilliant saves throughout the Tokyo Games. I am really happy that their performances have been recognised and would like to congratulate them for being nominated for the FIH Women's Player of the Year Award and FIH Women's Goalkeeper of the Year Award respectively," said Sharmila.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor