A chance for teams to assess Rio preparations

Raipur, November 26

Their berths in next year’s Olympics secured, all the eight participating teams in the Hockey World League Final are looking at the elite tournament as a platform to assess their strengths and weaknesses with little over nine months left for the Rio Games.

The HWL Final will kickstart at the newly-built Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Stadium here from tomorrow with hosts India taking on Argentina in the opener. Besides world no. 6 India and Pan-American champions Argentina, the other participating teams in the tournament are world champions Australia, defending champions Netherlands, European heavyweights Germany, Belgium and Great Britain, and Canada.

And for all the competing teams, the HWL Final is a perfect launchpad to prepare themselves ahead of the big ticket event, the Olympics.

“Our target is to play our best hockey. We have improved as a team but we need to grow more as a unit. So our target will be to improve ourselves going into Rio,” Sardar said. “It will be a tough competition because the world’s best teams will be fighting it out on the pitch. The good thing is that you will get such tough matches in Olympics.”

World no. 1 Australia skipper Mark Knowles agreed with Sardar. “It is going to be a very good show here because the top eight teams of the world will be playing here. It is an important tournament for us because we don’t get to play big nations quite often. So going towards Rio it is a very vital tournament for all,” Knowles said.

Britain’s skipper Dan Fox said that the main target for all the teams is to assess their preparation ahead of the Rio de Janeiro Games. “All the teams have qualified for Olympics. So the main target will be to prepare ahead of Rio,” Fox said.

Germany skipper Moritz Furste too knows the significance of the HWL Final but said Rio is not on their minds at the moment.

“We know it is a big tournament ahead of the Olympics but to be honest we are not thinking much about our performance in Rio now,” Furste said.

India are placed in a tough pool alongside Argentina, Germany and Netherlands, while the other pool consists of Australia, Belgium, Great Britain and Canada. — PTI