Manpreet Singh won the 2019 FIH Player of the Year award, becoming the first ever from India to bag the honour ever since the inception of the awards in 1999. Its a hat-trick for India after Lalremsiami and Vivek Sagar Prasad too got the Rising Stars tags a day earlier.

The India captain and midfielder finished ahead of Belgium’s Arthur van Doren and Argentina’s Lucas Vila, the FIH posted on its website on Thursday.

He collected 35.2 percent of the votes which involved national associations, players, fans and the media. Van Doren garnered 19.7 percent while Vila finished with 16.5 percent.

Manpreet debuted for his country in 2011 and has collected 260 caps as he leads India’s challenge in the FIH Pro League.

In 2019, Manpreet led India to victory in the FIH Olympic qualifiers against Russia. India won 4-2, 7-1 in th double-leg qualifier in Bhubaneswar to book a spot in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. A fluent triumph, culminating in a 5-1 win over South Africa in the final of the FIH Series Finals, also in Bhubaneswar, enabled India make the qualifiers.

Manpreet donned India colours at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics and reflected on the year gone by. “Last year, we did well in every tournament we participated in. Be it the FIH Series Finals in June or the test series in Belgium where we played the hosts as well as Spain and beat them,” Manpreet was quoted as saying.

“Our biggest goal in 2019 was to book our berth at the Olympics,” he added.

A hardworking yet effervescent midfielder, Manpreet’s leadership skills have also done much to help India make the higher echelons of world hockey where the team currently occupy fifth place in the FIH Rankings.

He is caring and appreciative of young players in the team and has this to say: “We have plenty of youngsters in the side who will be flying as part of the team for the Olympics and it is important they are ready for it.”

Eva takes womens’ top honour

Netherlands captain Eva de Goede was voted 2019 FIH Player of the Year twice in a row. The midfielder took the prize ahead of Argentina’s Carla Rebecchi and Janne Müller-Wieland of Germany, who finished second and third respectively.

De Goede collected 33.5 percent of votes, Rbecchi 28.8 percent and Muller-Wieland 11.7 percent.

In a career over 14 years, the 30-year-old de Goede has played over 230 matches for the Netherlands and has won two Olympic gold medals (Beijing 2008 and London 2012), two World Cup gold medals and three Champions Trophy gold medals.