NEW DELHI - Eight-time Olympic field hockey champion India plunged to a new low by failing to qualify for this year's Beijing games, snapping an 80-year history that featured six successive gold medals since a startling debut at Amsterdam in 1928.

India's hopes of figuring in the Beijing Olympic lineup were dashed Sunday when it lost 2-0 to Britain in the final of a qualifying competition at Chile, provoking criticism from former players at the way the sport is governed in the country.

Ashok Kumar, another former captain and member of the 1975 World Cup winning squad, termed India's failure to qualify for the Olympics as a "huge national disaster."

"This decline did not happen in one day, the hockey federation just did not seem interested in noticing and arresting the decline," said Kumar.

Indian hockey has slumped in the world rankings since winning the 1975 World Cup and the last of its eight Olympic gold medals at the Moscow Games in 1980.

Indian teams have briefly shown glimpses of its once dazzling stick-work, but it has not qualified for the semifinals of eight successive World Cups and six consecutive Olympic Games.

Pargat Singh, who captained India at two Olympics, said India's failure to qualify for the Beijing Games should not surprise anyone.

"It's a sad day for Indian hockey, but people should have seen it coming," Singh told The Associated Press.

"The Indian Hockey Federation, the national Olympic association and the sports ministry are all responsible for the state of affairs," he said.

Singh said the country had few players of international quality and "the pool is further dwindling with the game not being promoted at the grass roots."

"Indian hockey needs a rebuilding program, but the hockey federation is acting deaf and dumb and doesn't seem bothered about bringing any change," he said.

India was forced to compete in one of the three qualifiers - from which one team each will feature at the Olympics - after it failed to figure among the medals at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

Two-time Asian Games gold medalist India failed to win a medal for the first time at Doha, only scraping into the semifinals.

Media reports said coach Joaquim Carvalho had quit after his team failed to qualify for the Olympics, but the hockey federation refused to comment on the resignation.

Indian Hockey Federation's chief, K.P.S. Gill acknowledged that the failure to qualify was a big setback, but was reported to have brushed aside demands for his resignation.

"We do not have an instant coffee machine that you can get results instantly," Gill was quoted as saying by Press Trust of India. "We've put the process in place and the results will take some time.

"It is not proper to respond at this stage. We'll wait for the team to return first, then we will have a clear idea what went wrong," Gill said.

The Indian capital New Delhi will host the 2010 men's field hockey World Cup, but India's absence from the Olympic lineup may take away some of the sheen from the sport that is dubbed as India's national game, despite cricket's immense popularity.