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Tribune Information Service
Batala/Jalandhar, August 2
Batala Police SP Varinderpreet Singh, father of midfielder Hardik Singh, who scored a peach of a objective in opposition to Nice Britain within the quarterfinals, is attempting laborious to regulate to his new-found fame.
“Hardik known as me minutes after the match. He mentioned profitable a gold medal was extra essential for him than scoring objectives,” mentioned Varinderpreet, himself a nationwide participant from 1996 to 1999. After his magical objective, Hardik appeared above and pointed to the sky and murmured one thing — who was he speaking to?
Varinderpreet instructed The Tribune that Hardik was remembering his grandfather. “His grandfather had this dream of seeing Hardik within the Olympics and when he handed away in 2017, Hardik made this the ambition of his life,” Varinderpreet mentioned. Hardik’s grandfather used to take him to the village floor to practise, and each of them dreamt of the day when Hardik would play on the Olympics.
“Hardik instructed his mom that he thanked his Daddy (as he used to fondly name his grandfather) for his blessings,” mentioned Varinderpreet.
Remembering Hardik’s childhood, Varinderpreet mentioned he would by no means go for a household occasion and would as a substitute go to the hockey floor to play. “Apart from hockey jerseys, he by no means appreciated to buy something,” he mentioned. “Since he hardly attended any household operate and all the time focussed on video games, a few of my spouse’s kin didn’t even know that Hardik is our son!” he added.
Aim!
As recounted by Varinderpreet, these are the precise phrases of his son about that fabulous objective: “I collected the ball almost 15-20 yards from outdoors the circle. I then weaved my manner in direction of the objective from the left aspect and as soon as the citadel was in clear sight, I pushed the ball in. Nevertheless, the push lacked punch. I tried this shot understanding completely nicely that the angle was acute and the goalkeeper had already adjusted himself to dam my shot. A second of disappointment adopted when the goalkeeper padded away the ball however then, a lot to my delight, it landed again into play. I rushed in direction of the centre of the circle however discovered myself hemmed in by a few defenders. I managed to get my persist with the ball however then thought hitting the ball with out having a lot area, which might have meant hitting it with out the specified drive, would serve no goal. As if on a hunch,
I pulled the ball a number of inches away from the defenders. This gave me sufficient area, and with it the specified punch, to whack the ball in!”
Hardik belongs to a hockey-playing household which incorporates former Indian ladies’s group captain Rajbir Kaur and her husband Gurmail Singh, who was a part of the 1980 Moscow Olympics gold medal-winning group. India’s former star drag-flicker Jugraj Singh is his uncle. Varinderpreet mentioned he was flooded with calls as soon as the match was over.
