It seems all over for former Indian hockey team captain Sardar Singh as Hockey India\u2019s high-performance director David John wants young legs with great speed to prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur emphasis is on young legs having a good speed as we aren\u2019t a strong nation in terms of physical strength like Australia and Germany. So our emphasis is on fast hockey and youngsters are better suited to this,\u201d David said in an exclusive chat here on Thursday.<\/p>\n
He refused to advise Sardar when to retire from the game, but said that in games during the Azlan Shah hockey in Malaysia early this month, the ageing star sometimes lacked leg speed, which remained a big problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Sardar) still holds good skills and commands the ball well, but in the last 12-18 months the game has become more faster. Sardar wasn\u2019t matching to it. Much would depend on how we pick our core group of 24 and also a development group of 24 after the national championship here,\u201d said David.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be Sardar\u2019s call to take a decision about his retirement. He is very sensible and very competitive. He has played hockey up to a very high level and still wants to play at the top, which is quite difficult for him now,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe have good young players in the midfield, and we would like to pick those youngsters, who could serve the game till 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commenting on Manpreet Singh-led Indian team for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, starting April 4 at Gold Cost in Australia, David claimed that this was the best team he picked for the mega event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the best combination we picked this year. Selection was purely based on their forms on previous three tournaments. They are a confident lot, and I find them the best combination we could have this moment,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cEveryone is fit, healthy raring to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He, however, accepted that upcoming Asian Games was on top of the agenda of the Hockey India as a podium finish would give the side direct entry to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. \u201cWe have 8-9 big tournaments this year, but Asian Games is top of our priorities. If we qualify for the Tokyo Games, we will have two years time to prepare and try out all our combinations to pick the best side.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also admitted that there were all possibilities of a change in the core group of 24 for the future events like Asian Games, Olympic qualifiers and the World Cup. \u201cPlayers would keep on rotating from core group to development group so a healthy competition of performance would always be there between the players. There were a few good youngsters at the Azlan Shah tourney, and I would certainly like to give them a chance to play in big events in future.\u201d<\/p>\n
David, who is here to spot young talents at the ongoing senior nationals, also hoped a good show from the Indian women\u2019s team at the Gold Cost Games. \u201cWe are a very good women\u2019s side in the event. They have been doing well in the recent past. There would be just three higher ranked teams like New Zealand, Australia and England, and if we make the cut for a berth in the semi-final, the pressure would be on other teams,\u201d said David, who would be accompanying the women\u2019s team as manager at Gold Cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cGurjit Kaur is one of the best drag-flicker in the world, and I am sure she would put her best foot forward at the Games,\u201d added David, who termed the presence of team\u2019s analytical coach and former Australian drag-flicker Chris Ciriello good for the Indian hockey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems all over for former Indian hockey team captain Sardar Singh as Hockey India\u2019s high-performance director David John wants young legs with great speed to prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. \u201cOur emphasis is on young legs having a good speed as we aren\u2019t a strong nation in terms of physical strength like Australia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24956,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24954\/revisions\/24956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}