Vijay Kumar was one of the first victors who won the silver medal in the 25m rapid-fire event. The Indian contingent came home with 2 silver and 4 bronze medals. The London Olympics was by far India's most successful Olympic show ever. With the score at 4-3, India survived two penalty corners in the last few minutes to win their 8 th Gold Medal. India scored one and conceded one more till the last few minutes. The final was nail-biting with India taking a 3-0 lead before Spain cut back to score 2 goals.
However, the showdown with Spain was set again for the blockbuster final. The Soviet Union game in the semi-final went in India's favour with a 4-2 score helping them progress to the final. The group stages witnessed India beat Tanzania 18-0, Cuba by 13-0 and drew to Poland and future finalists Spain with a score of 2-2 in both games. This team was relatively inexperienced and only had a few veterans such as MM Somaya, Zafar Iqbal and Bir Chhetri playing for them. This was the last time that India won a medal at the Olympics and it proved to be one of the finest campaigns that Indian hockey witnessed. India then took on the Netherlands in the third-place playoff with Govinda and Mukhbain sealing the bronze medal for India. It was in the semi-final however that they met their arch-rivals Pakistan but ended up losing by a score of 2-0 in-game where Pakistan were clearly the better team. They topped their group which included defeating teams like the Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. India seemingly sailed through to the semi-final by dominating their group-stage matches.