Dilip Tirkey (born 25 November 1977) is an Indian former field hockey player and administrator from Odisha. A full-back, he played 412 international matches between 1995 and 2010, more than any Indian before him, appeared at three Olympic Games and captained the national team. Since September 2022 he has been president of Hockey India, the first former international player to hold the post.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Dilip Kumar Tirkey |
| Born | 25 November 1977, Saunamara, Sundargarh district, Odisha |
| Age | 48 |
| State | Odisha |
| Sport | Field hockey |
| Position | Full-back |
| International career | 1995–2010; 412 matches |
| Olympics | 1996, 2000, 2004 |
| Office | President, Hockey India (since 2022); Member of the Rajya Sabha (2012–2018) |
| Awards | Arjuna Award (2002), Padma Shri (2004) |
Early Life
He was born in Saunamara, a village in the tribal district of Sundargarh in north-western Odisha. In that district hockey is a way of life: villages hold tournaments in which the prize is a goat, and children play with sticks cut from bamboo. His father, Vincent Tirkey, a soldier of the Central Reserve Police Force who had played hockey himself, encouraged him.
He was selected for the state sports hostel at Rourkela, the steel town that has produced a long line of India players.
Playing Career
Debut
He first played for India in 1995, against England, at eighteen.
Style
He was a defender of calm judgment and clean tackling, with a powerful hit from penalty corners that brought him more than sixty international goals. Team-mates and opponents called him the wall of Indian hockey.
Tournaments
- **Olympics:** Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, where he was captain
- **Asian Games:** gold at Bangkok in 1998, India’s first in the event for thirty-two years, and silver in 2002
- **Asia Cup:** winners in 2003 and 2007
- **Other:** the Afro-Asian Games gold of 2003 and several World Cups and Champions Trophies
The years of his career were lean ones for Indian hockey. The team failed to qualify for the Olympics of 2008, the first time in eighty years, and he was among the senior players who bore the disappointment. He retired in 2010.
Politics
The Biju Janata Dal sent him to the Rajya Sabha in 2012 for a six-year term. He later headed the Odisha government’s tourism corporation and contested elections for the party in Sundargarh without success.
Administrator
Odisha became the sponsor of the Indian national hockey teams in 2018 and hosted the men’s World Cup in 2018 and 2023. Tirkey was closely involved, and the new stadium at Rourkela, among the largest hockey grounds in the world, stands in his home district.
He was elected president of Hockey India unopposed on 23 September 2022. During his term:
- the men’s team won bronze at the Paris Olympics of 2024, its second Olympic medal running
- the Hockey India League was revived, with a women’s competition for the first time
Honours
- Arjuna Award (2002)
- Padma Shri (2004), among the youngest hockey players to receive it
- Ekalavya Award and the Biju Patnaik sports award of Odisha
Personal Life
He is married to Meera Tirkey and has children. He runs a foundation that organises a rural hockey championship in Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, in which thousands of village teams have taken part, and has said that his aim is to find the next generation of players in places like the one he came from.
Sundargarh adjoins the tribal districts of Jharkhand, the country of Birsa Munda. Odisha’s other well-known athletes include the sprinter Dutee Chand.
Featured image: Dilip Tirkey in 2023. Photo by MaxA-Matrix, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.