Three goals with six stitches on the forehead: Hendrix who caused India's defeat in the semi-finals
India had a good start in the semi-finals of hockey between India and Belgium in the ongoing Olympics in Japan and both the teams were equal till halftime. Despite this, India lost the match by a huge margin of five goals to two.
Alexander Hendricks is the only player in the Belgian hockey team responsible for the defeat of the Indian hockey team. Hendricks scored a hat trick in the match and converted a penalty stroke.
Excellent performance despite injuries
Hendricks' temperament was judged at the same Olympics on Sunday when he went down to play in the quarter-finals against Spain. Belgium won the match by three goals to one and Hendricks scored two goals.
But that's not the whole story, the story is that just two days before the quarter-final match, Alexander Hendricks was injured in the match against Great Britain. A British player's hockey stick hit him in the forehead, causing him to bleed profusely.
Doctors had to put six stitches on his forehead, three on the outside and three on the inside. The next day, Saturday, he had an MRI, which showed that he had no internal injuries.
The team's head coach Shane McLeod was upset but Hendricks not only coached the team but also his team by getting clearance from five of the six radiologists.
If you can't even guess his insanity for the game, check out his scorecard at the Tokyo Olympics.
Round to round
He has scored 14 goals in seven matches until the semi-finals. The most goals in the tournament have come from his hockey.
Senior sports journalist Sorbh Dougal says of Hendricks' performance: "If an athlete is consistently scoring goals in a world-class tournament like the Olympics, make sure he is an expert in his art or at the forefront."
By the way, there is a story behind the spirit of best performance in the Olympics.
The journey from reserve player to star player
In fact, five years ago, during the Rio Olympics, Belgium's performance was excellent. The team did not win a gold medal, but Belgium's performance until Argentina lost the final was outstanding and Alexander Hendricks had no hand in the victory as he was the team's reserve player and had to sit on the bench throughout the tournament.
He was proud of his team's performance but decided at the time that he would work harder to make his dreams come true so that the team management would not make him a reserve player.
Those who remember the 2018 World Championships in Bhubaneswar will surely remember Alexander Hendricks. Hendricks was the highest-scoring player in the tournament and his seven goals helped the Belgian team to become world champions.
"Look, Hendricks has his own skills as well as his team's own success, the team creates opportunities for them by winning penalty corners and their specialty is that they take advantage of the opportunity," added Soorabh Dougal. '
How did Hendricks get into the world of hockey?
The pace of modern hockey and the pressure of big tournaments is so great that it is not easy to take advantage of this opportunity, but Hendricks is doing well because he started playing hockey when he was only five years old.
Coincidentally, there was a hockey club just two streets away from where his parents lived, where Alexander arrived at the age of five, and by the age of 14, his name had spread to the Belgian National Hockey Circle.
But they did not achieve this overnight, but they proved themselves step by step. He first joined the U-16 team, then the U-18 team and then he further improved himself in the U-21 team.
After all, at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore, he helped Belgium win a bronze medal with 11 goals in the tournament. He joined the Belgian national team in 2012 at the age of just 18. The following year, he was named Belgium's Emerging Player of the Year.
It took time to make a place on the national team
Despite this, he had to sit on the bench as a reserve athlete at the 2016 Rio Olympics. "Belgian hockey has grown so much in the last few years that even talents like Hendricks have had to wait for a chance," says Sorbh Dougal.
Alexander Hendricks is one of the most dangerous drag flickers in the world at the moment, but his fears of opposing teams are not as strong as those of Pakistan's Sohail Abbas, Britain's Calum Giles, the Netherlands' Tekma Tekma, and Australia's Troy Elder.
"Even though Hendrix has not been branded like this, it is not the least of them," says Sourabh Dougal. One reason for not branding is that Hendrix's conversion rate is average, not very good. But they also use their wrist movements effectively.
By the way, you will be even more surprised to know that Hendrix, 27, is a very educated hockey player. After graduating from the University of Antwerp, he holds a Master's degree in Applied Economic Sciences.