Hockey camps extended, SAI no to Netherlands exposure trip

The Indian women and men’s hockey probables will proceed to arrange for subsequent yr’s Tokyo Olympics at Bengaluru’s Sports Authority of India (SAI) campus. SAI has prolonged the camps by two months although it has rejected a proposal to tour Netherlands for follow matches.

The males’s camp, which began in early August, will proceed until November 28 and the ladies’s group will prepare till December 12 after the request to tour Europe was turned down, SAI stated in a press release to HT.

The camp was initially scheduled until September 30. The gamers had began sport-related actions on August 19 after a compulsory quarantine of two weeks. Six male gamers had examined positive for Covid-19 on returning to Bengaluru after a month’s break, having initially been confined to the SAI Southern Centre throughout a three-month nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.

Extending the camps is a aid for the teaching workers as gamers would face a well being threat travelling house.

SAI rejecting the Europe tour although is a blow because the gamers haven’t have had many matches this yr. The proposal was to tour Netherlands to play in opposition to European groups throughout the Pro League clashes in October finish.

SAI has allowed elite swimmers Srihari Nataraj, Kushagra Rawat and Sajan Prakash to coach in Dubai and boxer Vikas Krishan to journey to the United States for coaching, although the hockey group will current a far larger logistics problem.

“The national camps are to be extended as the teams are not going to Netherlands, as had been planned, due to Covid-19 travel restrictions,” SAI stated.

The coaches would have needed some matches after the camps because the probables regain peak health and are eager to make amends for misplaced alternatives this yr.

The males’s group final performed within the FIH Pro League in January-February, in opposition to Netherlands, Belgium and Australia. The girls’s group has not performed a match because the tour of New Zealand in January when it figured in 5 exhibition matches. Its publicity journey to China in March was cancelled as a result of pandemic.

The males will resume their Pro League marketing campaign in April within the build-up to Tokyo Olympics (July 23-August 8). The girls’s group is just not within the Pro League and coach Sjoerd Marijne had hoped to organise some follow video games in Netherlands in opposition to groups that characteristic in that match.