Lausanne: India captain Harmanpreet Singh was on Tuesday nominated for the player of the year award by the FIH while the legendary PR Sreejesh will be in contention for goalkeeper of the year honour.
The International Hockey Federation’s (FIH) announced the shortlisted candidates.
Both Harmanpreet and Sreejesh played vital roles in India’s splendid
campaign in the Paris Olympics where the team claimed a bronze medal.
Skipper Harmanpreet led from the front with 10 goals — most for any player in the tournament.
Harmanpreet will compete with Thierry Brinkman (Netherlands), Joep de Mol (Netherlands),
Hannes Müller (Germany), and Zach Wallace (England) for the award.
Playing in his last tournament for India, the venerable Sreejesh put forth resolute display of defence
throughout the campaign, especiallyagainst the Great Britain when the team was reduced to 10 men in the second quarter of the quarterfinal.
India beat Great Britain 4-2 in penalty shootout to reach the semifinal and later on defeated Spain 2-1 to win the bronze medal contest.
Sreejesh has competition from Pirmin Blaak (Netherlands), Luis Calzado (Spain), Jean-Paul Danneberg (GER), and Tomas Santiago (Argentina).
“The list of nominees was established by an Expert Panel composed of players, coaches and officials selected
by each of their Continental Federations,” the FIH said on its website.
“The expert panel was provided access to match data from all international matches held in 2024, including Test matches, the
FIH hockey Pro League, FIH Hockey Nations Cups, FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers and theOlympic Games Paris 2024 before establishing the final list of nominees.”