Lalremsiami, Vivek Sagar named as FIH’s Rising Stars of the Year

Indian hockey players Vivek Sagar Prasad and Lalremsiami on Monday in Switzerland were named as the FIH’s Rising Stars of the Year. Vivek was announced as the Men’s Rising Star while Lalremsiami was named as the Women’s Rising Star.

Indian team’s midfielder Vivek Sagar Prasad was selected as the best emerging player of the year for 2019 by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Monday. Nineteen-year-old Sagar won the award, beating Meiko Casella of Argentina (second) and Blake Govers (third) of Australia. Sagar garnered a total of 34.5 percent of the vote. Meiko received 22 percent and the government received 20.9 percent of the vote.

Sagar became the second-youngest player to represent the country during the four-nation invitational tournament at the age of 17 in January 2018. He has been a part of the senior Indian team continuously since then and has played more than 50 matches. He was also part of the silver medal-winning team in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in 2019. Not only this, but he was also part of the team in the FIH Series Finals and Olympic Qualifiers last year.

Similarly, Lalremsiami, the 19-year-old striker from India, pipped Argentina’s Julieta Jankunas and Netherlands’ Frédérique Matla, who finished second and third.

The player from Mizoram received 40 percent of the vote. She received 47.7 percent votes from national associations, 28.4 percent from media and 36.4 percent votes from fans and sportsperson. Lalremsiami remains an integral part of the Indian team after making her 2017 debut against Belarus.

She scored the most goals against Korea in 2017 and Spain in 2019. At the FIH Series Finals in Hiroshima, India defeated eight other teams vying for a place in the Olympic qualifiers.

It is also to be noted that Lalremsiami’s father had passed away during the tournament, but the brave striker decided to continue to play for the nation even after in a deep state of sorrow and later said, “I wanted my father to be proud of me. So I decided to stop and play.”