Savita Punia Nominated For The FIH Goalkeeper Of The Year Award 2023

Indian Women's Hockey team captain and goalkeeper Savita Punia has been nominated for the third consecutive time for the FIH Women Goalkeeper of the Year award category at this year's FIH Hockey Stars Awards.

Savita won the FIH Goalkeeper of the Year Awards in 2021 and 2022.

FIH Hockey Stars Awards

The World Hockey governing body FIH released the list of nominees selected by an Expert Panel composed of players, former players, coaches and officials selected by each of their Continental Federations. The players were selected on the basis of their performance in every international match played in 2023. 

How Champions are selected  

The final winners in different categories are chosen through voting. Votes of different categories of voters have been assigned different weightage.The weightage of the Expert Panel is 40%, and the National Association's vote weightage is 20%. The fans' and other players' weightage is 20%, while the weightage of the media personnel is 20%.

List of Nominee for the 2023 FIH Hockey Stars Awards

FIH Player of the Year Award

Women:          

• Charlotte Englebert (Belgium)
• Rosie Malone (Australia)
• Eugenia Trinchinetti (Argentina)
• Xan de Waard (Netherlands)
• Sonja Zimmermann (Germany)

Men:

• Thierry Brinkman (Netherlands)
• Jeremy Hayward (Australia) 
• Hardik Singh (India)
• Zach Wallace (England)
• Niklas Wellen (Germany)

FIH Goalkeeper of the Year Award - Nominees

Women:

• Jocelyn Bartram (Australia)
• Kelsey Bing (USA)
• Josine Koning (Netherland)
• Savita (India)
• Julia Sonntag (Germany)

Men:

• Pirmin Blaak (Netherland)
• Andrew Charter (Australia)
• Jean-Paul Danneberg (Germany)
• Oliver Payne (England)
• Vincent Vanasch (Belgium)

Past Indian winner of the FIH Hockey Stars Awards

Harmanpreet Singh won the FIH Best Male Hockey Player of the Year award in 2021 and 2022.

PR Sreejesh won the FIH Men's Goalkeeper of the Year in 2021 and 2022.

Savita Punia won the FIH Women's Goalkeeper of the Year in 2021 and 2022.

Achievements of Savita Punia

• Savita Punia is one of the most important players in the current Indian women's Hockey team. She was part of the national team which won the inaugural FIH Hockey Women's Nations Cup 2022 in Spain.
• She led the Indian team to the Bronze medal win at the Hangzhou Asian Games Hangzhou held in 2023.
• She led the Indian team to a title win at the 2023 Women's Asian Champions Trophy, held in Ranchi, Jharkhand. 
• Under her Captaincy, India also achieved their best-ever world ranking of No.6. 

Olympic Qualifying Event 

The Indian women's Hockey team will participate in the upcoming FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifier 2024. It will be held in Ranchi, Jharkhand, from 13th to 19th January 2024.

India is in Pool B along with New Zealand, the United States, and Italy. Germany, Japan, Chile, and the Czech Republic are in Pool B. 

The top two teams from each group will qualify for the semi-final.

The top three teams will qualify for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.  

FIH( Fédération Internationale de Hockey) 

FIH( Fédération Internationale de Hockey) is the governing body of both men's and women's International hockey.

Headquarters: Lausanne, Switzerland 

 President:  Tayyab Ikram