India's sports chiefs are increasingly getting worried at the national team's decline in international field hockey events after watching the eight-time Olympic champion fail to make the Asian Games semifinal for the first time in 48 years.

Suresh Kalmadi, president of the Indian Olympic Association, says it is disappointing to see Indian hockey slump to dismal lows in international events.

"We're very concerned at the decline of Indian hockey. Failing to make the semifinals in the Asian Games is another disappointment coming from our national game," Kalmadi told reporters Thursday.

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India's women clinched a bronze medal Wednesday in the Asian Games, but the men's team _ which monopolized all Olympic hockey titles between 1928 and 1956 _ slipped to the fifth spot.

India had its first loss to China in the preliminary round and that cost the two-time Asian Games titlist a place in the semifinals.

It was the first time that India had failed to clinch an Asian Games medal since hockey was included on the program in 1958.

Before Doha's Asian Games, India this year failed to advance to the semifinals of the Commonwealth Games in March for the first time and then finished 11th out of a 12-nation World Cup lineup three months ago.

"Watching the slump of Indian hockey is very painful," Kalmadi said.

Kalmadi said he had met the International Hockey Federation's president, Els van Breda Vriesman, who also was worried at the declining standard of Indian hockey.

The world hockey body has recently embarked on a program to assist India to regain its prestige, sending a a top official to analyze the structure and formulate a program for which the money will come from the International Olympic Committee.

Van Breda Vriesman said during the World Cup in September that the FIH could only advise and assist through resources, the hard word would still have to be done by Indian officials.

"I'll be meeting the hockey officials on my return to New Delhi, we've got to do something so that Indian hockey can regain its prestige," Kalmadi said.