Ludhiana, June 3
Though the Indian hockey team failed to taste much success during the current year, the Indian Hockey Federation has started preparations for the forthcoming Athens Olympics in the right earnest. Hockey matches during the Athens Olympics are scheduled to be held from August 13 to 28. The federation has drawn up an ambitious programme for the team before its participation in the event.
The Indian squad is going to attend a coaching camp in the USA till June 21 and then it will travel to Amerstadam where it will undergo a preparatory camp from June 23 to 26. After that, the players will play a tournament in Holland involving four nations. The boys will return to India for a week before the last coaching camp to be held in Germany.
Before leaving for the USA, former captain of the Indian team, Baljit Singh Dhillon said though it was not an easy task ahead of the team in the Olympics, yet going by the experience and talent of the boys, they could finish among the medal winners. When asked about the weak point, the star player said in the past two years, Jugraj Singh had exhibited great quality in penalty corner conversion but unfortunatley star flicker was seriously injured in a road accident last year which proved costly to the team in the recently held tournaments.
Baljit was of the views that if they were able to translate the penalty corners into goal then they could beat any team in the world as the boys had already shown their supremacy in scoring field goals. He was quite hopeful when asked whether the coaching camps in America and Germany would prove helpful to the boys. The climate, there is like that of Athens and these camps would definatley help boys improve their game.
Regarding the change in the penalty corner rule, Baljit Singh said teams that have young drag flickers in their ranks would benefit the most. Since Pakistan, India, Holland, Australia and Argentina have good flickers the new rule is expected to come in handy for these teams.
Eight times Olympics champions, India are placed in group B with current champions Holland along with Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa. The group A consists of teams from reiging world champions West Germany, Pakistan, Spain, South Korea and England.
