The Indian Women’s Hockey Team made history when they reached semifinals in Tokyo Olympics and achieved fourth place (their best-ever result) at the Games. One of the players who played a crucial role in India’s excellent outing at the Tokyo Games was the young Forward Sharmila Devi. The 19-year-old made several brilliant moves 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. For her incredible efforts at the Tokyo Olympics, Sharmila Devi has been nominated for the FIH Women’s Rising Star of the Year Award 2020-2021.

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. 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.”

Sharmila added that the national side was disappointed after missing out on a Bronze Medal, however, the team will focus on the lessons from the Tokyo Games.

“We were very close to winning a Medal, but we couldn’t do so. It was heartbreaking for us to not close out the game against Great Britain, however, we will focus on the learnings from the tournament in the upcoming days. We have gained a lot of confidence from the way we took on the top teams in the world. We just need to fine-tune a few things and then we will certainly perform well regularly in the biggest of tournaments,” said the 19-year-old.

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 recognized and would like to congratulate them for being nominated for the FIH Player of the Year Award and FIH Goalkeeper of the Year Award respectively,” said Sharmila.