Celebrations at Tushar’s home; Olympians feel India missed a ‘golden’ opportunity

“My husband late Vinod Khandekar was a national level hockey player. He always wanted Tushar to bring laurels for the country in the international arena. Be it my elder son Vinamra who has also been a national level player or Tushar’s uncle Subodh Khandekar who is a former hockey international,all are proud of him,” she added.

Tushar’s uncle Subodh said,“ It is good that India has won a bronze. Had some other player scored the goal,then also we would have been equally happy. It would have been really great had the boys won a gold.” Moscow Olympics gold medallist Mohammad Shahid said that India should have claimed a gold because then India would have qualified for the Olympics directly whereas now it has to take part in the Olympic qualifiers. “ It was a golden opportunity for India to qualify for the Olympics. We do not really know how to get penalty-corners. When India could defeat a team like South Korea today then why not Malaysia in the semi-finals.” Olympian Sujeet Kumar also felt that the team had lost against Malaysia because its performance was not up to the mark. “A gold would have boosted the sport of hockey in a big way and silenced the critics,” he said. Olympian Syed Ali,however,said that a medal at the Asian Games was a reason to cheer about. “It was a tough match. South Korea were the defending champions and India has defeated them. Of course,India had the potential to win a gold.”