Tribune News Service
Kapurthala, August 23
Three women hockey players of Rail Coach Factory — Olympian Navjot Kaur, Lalresiami and Reena Khokhar — who represented India at Tokyo Olympics, and goalkeeper Krishan Pathak, who was raised and trained at RCF and was a part of the bronze medal winning men’s hockey team, were given a rousing welcome on their return to RCF today.
On reaching RCF, they were garlanded at the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Stadium by principal chief mechanical engineer and RCF Sports Association president RK Mangla, principal chief engineer and association vice-president SC Meena, chief project manager and association honorary general secretary Nitin Choudhary, and other officials of the RCF Sports Association.
RCF General Manager Ravinder Gupta met the three women players at his office and honoured them. Navjot and Lalresiami were promoted as gazetted officers. Each player shared their experiences at the Tokyo Olympics. Congratulating them, Gupta said their performance in the Olympics was no less than a gold medal and he hoped that the players would work hard to give the team a gold medal in the upcoming Hockey World Cup and many more players from the RCF will represent India in the coming international fixtures.
The Tokyo Olympic star players were welcomed on their way to the hockey stadium by the players of men’s hockey, football, athletics, basketball and wrestling teams.
All three women hockey players are regular members of the RCF and Indian Railways team. Navjot has played 180 matches for Indian team so far while Lalresiami has played 72 matches with the national team and Reena Khokhar has played 45 matches. Reena was with the team as a standby. Krishna Pathak, who was born in Kapurthala, lives with his uncle, who works in RCF. He received training in goalkeeping from Yogita Bali, a senior goal keeper of the RCF. Pathak was a part of the Indian junior hockey team that won the Men’s Hockey Junior World Cup in 2016, since then has been a regular member of the Indian team and has played 50 matches with the Indian team.
Rousing welcome greets hockey stars at RCF, Kapurthala
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