New Delhi: Women hockey team’s chief coach Harendra Singh has set his sights on achieving positive results against higher-ranked sides as India embark on an ‘important’ 2018 season. After a short two-week break, the core group of 33 women players will report for the national camp starting in Bangalore’s SAI campus, Wednesday.
“It is an extremely important year for us. It was a satisfying 2017 where we ended the year with a career high world ranking of No. 10, but the team have self-belief of achieving bigger goals,” Harendra said Tuesday.
“The girls know they are capable of doing well against higher-ranked teams and getting good results against these sides will be one of our top priorities going into a new season. It is important to play major tournaments in 2018 with the fittest team,” added the coach.
The 21-day camp concludes January 24 will lay the foundation for a crucial year for the women.
The Indian girls will take part in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April, Vth Women’s Asian Champions Trophy in Korea in May where they will defend their title followed by an exposure tour to Spain in June ahead of the Women’s World Cup in London starting in July and the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta in August which is also an Olympic Qualifying event.
In their previous camp, the team’s focus was on improving their strength and fitness, agility and speed apart from skill-driven training.
“It was a gruelling camp and apart from these aspects we also worked on a lot on mental conditioning. In this camp too we will continue with our fitness programme along with tactical training,” Harendra informed.
Press trust of India
