Mumbai, (Samajweekly) The brilliant campaigns of the Indian men and women’s teams at Tokyo Olympics — where the men’s team bagged a historical bronze medal after a gap of four decades and the women’s team reached the semi-finals for the first time, has helped players and coaches get shortlisted in most of the categories of FIH Star Awards.
Drag flickers Gurjit Kaur and Harmanpreet Singh have been nominated in the women and men’s category of the FIH Player of the Year Award while goalkeepers Savita and P.R. Sreejesh have been named for the respective FIH Goalkeeper of the Year Awards. Gurjit will be contending against Eva de Goede (the Netherlands), Augustina Gorzelany (Argentina), and Frederique Matla and Maria Verschoor (the Netherlands).
India’s Sharmila Devi has been shortlisted for the FIH Rising Start of the Year Award (women) while midfielder Vivek Sagar Prasad is one of the contenders for the men’s FIH Rising Player of the Year Award.
Indian women’s team coach Sjoerd Marijne has been shortlisted along with Australian Alyson Annan, coach of Olympic and World Champion Dutch women’s team, and Mark Hager (Australia) coach of Great Britain for the FIH Coach of the Year Award (women).
In the men’s category, India team chief coach Graham Reid has made it to the list along with Colin Bach (Australia), coach of the Australian men’s team, and Shane McLeod (New Zealand), coach of the Belgium team that added the Olympic title to its World title at Tokyo.
The nominee shortlist was agreed by an expert committee comprising FIH Athletes Committee Chair Rogier Hofman, media coordinator and journalist Sarah Juggins, Belgium Hockey High-Performance Director Adam Commens (chosen for the role by his peers to represent high performance and coaching staff), as well as FIH Executive Board Member Maureen Craig-Rousseau, a member of the Jury of Appeal at the Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020.
The final award winner will be chosen on the basis of votes cast by national associations, captains and coaches, journalists and fans, and players.
“Votes from national associations count for 50% of the overall result. Each NA will be granted two votes per gender, which will come from the national team captain and head coach. Votes from the media count for 25% of the overall result. Votes from fans/players count for 25% of the overall result,” the FIH said in a release on Monday.
