It's been a non-stop year for Indian hockey

Indian hockey's 2024 was marked by triumph and transition with the men's team winning Olympic bronze and the women's team rebounding from a dismal start

- Rudraneil Sengupta

"Go hard, boys, go hard!" P.R. Sreejesh's booming voice cut right through the heavy beats of the Punjabi hip-hop song blaring through the speakers of the spacious, well-equipped gym at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

Then Sreejesh strode to a bar loaded with 80 kilos worth of plates to rep some fierce deadlifts with perfect form, earning a roar of approval from the 20-odd players of the Indian hockey team at the gym.

Sreejesh smiled—a trademark ear-to-ear grin that has lit up Indian hockey for nearly two decades.

"Don't go by the smile," he said. "It's just a few months to the Paris Olympics, so what we are doing right now is giving everything we have to ensure we are absolutely ready. Today I was out on the turf for almost four hours in the heat. Now I'm in the gym. It's non-stop...all the way to the Olympics!"

Non-stop. That's not a bad phrase to describe the year that Indian hockey had in 2024. Saturated with action and emotion, a big high and a dismal low, and a hopeful resurrection of an event that may change the game worldwide to bring the year to a close.

The big high, of course, was that India won the bronze at the Paris Olympics in August, the team's first back-to-back Olympic medals (after the bronze in Tokyo 2020) in 50 years—the last time India won successive medals was Mexico 1968 and Munich 1972.