Indian Hockey Confederation’s Chairperson Mrs. Vidhya Stokes has been elected fourth term as vice president of the Asian Hockey Federation, election for which was held last Sunday at Kuala Lumpur. Stokes polled a record 45 votes, second highest after South Korea’s Shin Bark-Jae (46), among the seven contestants. Stokes is the only women vice-president out of the five elected. Two contestants were eliminated as they failed to get the minimum qualification votes.

Stokes attributed her resounding success to the ‘Indian women team’s consistently good performance’. Jubilant stokes said, “Our team is doing well and added Asian Games bronze to the Commonwealth Games silver last year. People are recognizing our work”.

Stokes also felt that her work as the Chairman of the Women’s Development Committee in AHF also contributed to the electoral success. “Only four teams participated in the 2002 Asian Games, and now seven at Doha number. Due to our consistent efforts based on this Committee’s ideas and suggestions, more and more Asian women teams are taking interest in international competitions. Even Pakistan women took part in a 4-Nation Cup at Kula Lumpur last year. We will soon motivate Bangladesh and Sri Lankan women to come up good standard”.

Her focus now would be to make Asia dominate the global women’s hockey world. “To realize this we need more competitions and for India we need training of coaches, umpires, managers, besides players”.

Indian Hockey Confederation Secretary Amrit Bose, who polled 39 votes, also got elected for the Executive Council.

Information source: IWHF Press Release