"Biggest achievement of life but plenty more to come": Harmanpreet Singh on Khel Ratna award

Harmanpreet Singh (Pic: File Pic)

Being happy to become a Khel Ratna awardee after a stellar performance at the Paris Olympics 2024, Indian men's hockey team captain Harmanpreet Singh said that it is an honour to his journey which he still has plenty more to achieve.

Double Olympic-medallist shooter Manu Bhaker, chess world champion D Gukesh, Harmanpreet and Paralympic high jump gold-winner Praveen Kumar were finalised for the 2024 Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award by the sports ministry on Thursday.

"(It's the) biggest recognition of my life. It's a big achievement for me. I am really very happy. It think it's the best part of my life that I am getting such a huge award and recognition," the 28-year-old Harmanpreet Kaur, who was India's top goal-scorer in the Paris Games with 10 strikes, told PTI in an interview.

Harmanpreet Singh has won many important awards in his career. It includes back-to-back Olympic bronze medals, a Junior World Cup gold in 2016, a Commonwealth Games silver, an Asian Games gold and bronze besides two silver medals in the Champions Trophy.

Harmanpreet Singh has also been honoured with the FIH Player of the Year award three times, so far. But the Indian skipper is far from satiated.

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"Throughout my journey I have learnt a lot, I have seen a lot of ups and downs including wins and losses. But I think you only learn from those experiences. From day one, my mindset has been how to improve myself," said the star player who was born into a family of farmers in Amritsar's Timmowal village and whose international career began in 2014.

Indeed a team man, Harmanpreet Singh credited his fellow teammates for helping him shine individually.

"Whatever we are achieving we are achieving as a team. The journey has been very fascinating, I am getting individual recognitions and awards but only because of my teammates."

"I have enjoyed my journey a lot till date. I have put on a lot of hard work and I am happy with what I have achieved till date," he said.

Harmanpreet Singh is now eyeing a medal in the World Cup which will be held in Belgium next year.

"My main target of course will be the World Cup because it's been long that we haven't won a medal in World Cup. But it's not like that you have achieved everything in life," he said.

"We have won back-to-back medals in Olympics but our next target would be to win the gold and win all major tournaments. It's a step by step process and we would like to achieve our targets as a team," he said.

Although the retirement stage is still a few years shy, the Indian skipper made it clear that he would always remain associated with the game even after drawing curtains on his career.

"World Cup, Asian Games and Olympics gold medals which are missing. The hunger is still there and when I retire, I would like to pass on that (drive) to the new kids because you can't stay away from hockey. Hockey is always in our heart and will remain there," he said.

"Whenever the calls comes to me in any capacity, I will be there to give back to the game," he said.

Harmanpreet is currently leading Punjab's Soorma Hockey Club at the ongoing Hockey India League in Rourkela. Soorma Hockey Club has so far played two matches, winning one and losing one.

"It is going to be tough for every team initially to gel together and get that understanding, build connections. We lost yesterday's match but we did a lot of good things in that.

"We can improve our combinations. We will analyse what mistakes we did. It's just the start of the league, long way to go," he said of the event that has been restarted after a seven-year gap.

(With PTI Inputs)