The Indian men’s hockey team played its heart out but went down 2-3 to World Champion Germany in the second semifinal at the Paris Olympic Games here on Tuesday, the players falling onto the turf with tears in their eyes. India’s hunt for their first gold medal in 44 years came to a heartbreaking end as Shamsher Singh shot over the crossbar with what was the last hit of the day, missing the equaliser by inches. India were hoping to reach the final for the first time since the 1980 Games in Moscow.

Tokyo Olympic Games bronze medallists are out of contention for the top two spots but have the chance to redeem themselves in the bronze medal match against Spain on Thursday. The country is the leading medallist in hockey at the Olympics and has the chance to win its 14th medal at the Games (eight golds, one silver, three bronze). India will be hoping to win back-to-back medals in the Olympics after the 1972 edition in Munich.

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India once again relied on their prolific skipper Harmanpreet Singh for the goals as the 28-year-old opened the scoring through yet another penalty corner in the seventh minute.

India’s decision to go on the defensive once they got the lead worked in favour of the Germans as they unleashed a flurry of attacks in response. The response was swift and immediate as they levelled the game through defender Gonzalo Peillat’s penalty corner in the 13th minute.

As the game neared half-time, a German attempt from a penalty corner hit defender Jarmanpreet Singh’s leg which resulted in a penalty stroke for the World Champions. Christopher Ruehr to take a 2-1 lead into half-time. India kept their nerves going into the all-important second half and kept knocking at the German defence. A penalty corner in the 37th minute saw Harmanpreet Singh strike it hard and low, Sukhjeet Singh followed the ball and got to the end of it to deflect it into the goals and level the score for the side.

Germany earned a penalty corner in the 46th minute which was saved by Sreejesh, however, the ball fell to the Germans who had a clear sight of an empty goal. But an amazing goal-line save by substitute Sanjay kept the game on level terms.

Germany’s repeated attempts at goal finally saw them breach the Indian defence in the 54th minute as Marco Miltkau scored the first field goal of the night.

When all hope seemed lost, a last-ditch attempt by India saw the ball fall to substitute Shamsher Singh who had a clear shot at goal with only the goalkeeper to beat. But his attempt sailed over the goalpost ahead of the final whistle.

India have lost their second successive semifinal at the Olympic Games having lost 2-5 to eventual champions Belgium at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They had then gone on to beat Germany 5-4 in the bronze medal match to end a four-decade-long drought.

The players will hope that history repeats itself in Paris and they bag another bronze medal.