time Olympic field hockey champion India plunged to a new low by failing to qualify for this year's Beijing Games, snapping an 80-year history that featured six successive gold medals since a startling debut at Amsterdam in 1928. India's hopes of figuring in the Beijing Olympic lineup were dashed Sunday when it lost 2-0 to Britain in the final of a qualifying competition at Chile, provoking criticism from former players at the way the sport is governed in the country. Britain, gold medalist in 1988, scored two early goals to seal India's fate and win the six-team competition in Chile which also featured the host, Austria, Russia and Mexico. Ashley Jackson set up the first for Barry Middleton in the fourth minute and Richard Mantell flicked in the second in the 10th. Forward Prabhjot Singh had two efforts blocked in quick succession as India tried to claw its way back and V.R.Raghunath then fired over from a rebound. Ashok Kumar, another former captain and member of the 1975 World Cup winning squad, termed India's failure to qualify for the Olympics a “huge national disaster.” “This decline did not happen in one day, the hockey federation just did not seem interested in noticing and arresting the decline,” said Kumar. Indian hockey has slumped in the world rankings since winning the 1975 World Cup and the last of its eight Olympic gold medals at the boycott-marred Moscow Games in 1980. Indian teams have briefly shown glimpses of its once dazzling stick-work, but it has not qualified for the semifinals of eight successive World Cups and six consecutive Olympic Games. Pargat Singh, who captained India at two Olympics, said India's failure to qualify for the Beijing Games should not surprise anyone. “It's a sad day for Indian hockey, but people should have seen it coming,” Singh told The Associated Press. “The Indian Hockey Federation, the national Olympic association and the sports ministry are all responsible for the state of affairs.” India was forced to compete in one of the three qualifiers - from which one team each will feature at the Olympics - after it failed to figure among the medals at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. Two-time Asian Games gold medalist India failed to win a medal for the first time at Doha, only scraping into the semifinals. India team coach Joaquim Carvalho quit after the final, but the hockey federation refused to comment on the resignation. “When I took over 11 months ago, I had said I would resign if I cannot deliver results,” Carvalho told Indian media in Santiago. “So now I am keeping my word. I am as disappointed and hurt as any other Indian hockey fan.” Indian Hockey Confederation vice president Narendra Batra also resigned, hoping to put pressure on the entire IHC administration to step down. Indian Hockey Federation's chief, K.P.S. Gill acknowledged that the failure to qualify was a big setback, but was reported to have brushed aside demands for his resignation. “We do not have an instant coffee machine that you can get results instantly,” Gill was quoted as saying by Press Trust of India. “We've put the process in place and the results will take some time. “It is not proper to respond at this stage. We'll wait for the team to return first, then we will have a clear idea what went wrong,” Gill said. Carvalho also dismissed fears that Indian hockey would not recover from the latest defeat in a country where cricket rules. “Failure to qualify for the Olympics is not the end of the road,” the outgoing coach said. “But we must start from scratch. We must retain the core team and perhaps even induct a few junior players. Some of the seniors will have to think hard about their future in international hockey.” The Indian capital New Delhi will host the 2010 men's field hockey World Cup, but India's absence from the Olympic lineup may take away some of the sheen from the sport that is dubbed as India's national game, despite cricket's immense popularity. __
