India dismayed after hockey qualification failure

India reacted with shock and dismay after their men's hockey team were eliminated from the Beijing Olympics competition, the first time the former eight-time winners would not compete in the games.

India, who have never missed an Olympics since they sent their first team in 1928, lost 2-0 to Britain in the final of the qualifying tournament in Chile with only the winner advancing to the 12-team event at the Beijing Games.

"It is a very big disaster in Indian hockey," Ashok Kumar, a member of India's 1975 World Cup winning side, told Reuters.

Kumar, son of late Indian hockey great Dhyan Chand, blamed the federation for not doing anything to halt the slide in the national game.

"It is not one day's story. It has been happening in the last decade," he said.