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News for 21 August 2020

All the news for Friday 21 August 2020


Asian Champions Trophy put back to March 2021

The continental meet, originally scheduled for Bangladesh in November this year, would have been India's first major tournament since the COVID lockdown

By Subhayan Dutta


Indian men’s hockey team have won the Asian Champions Trophy thrice. Photo: Hockey India

The Indian men’s hockey team is not scheduled to contest any major international tournament this year after the Asian Champions Trophy was postponed on Thursday.

The competition was originally scheduled for November this year in Dhaka, but the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) has rescheduled the biennial event to 11-19 March next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

First held in 2011, this will be the sixth edition of the continental tournament.

India has won it three times – in 2011, 2016 and 2018 where they were awarded the title jointly with Pakistan after consistent poor weather forced their final to be abandoned.

They were also runners-up in 2012.

The Asian Champions Trophy in the Bangladeshi capital looks set to be the first major event of 2021 and the first continental tournament in over 15 months.

Gruelling away road to Olympics

The postponement of the Asian Champions Trophy leaves the Indian hockey team with only a trip to Malaysia this year, subject to approval from the Indian government.

The team is scheduled to embark on a busy away season before the Tokyo Olympic Games.

They are start their 2021 away calendar with a 4-Nations Cup in New Zealand in February before the Asian Champions Trophy at Dhaka's Maulana Bhashani National Hockey Stadium.

India will come up against hosts Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea with the top four in the round-robin progressing to the semi-finals.

Next up for Graham Reid's men is the FIH Pro League in April and May with India visiting Argentina, Great Britain, Spain and Germany before returning home to host New Zealand.

And then finally, the team will travel to Tokyo for the Olympic Games in July.

India, who won last August's test event at Oi Hockey Stadium, will meet hosts Japan in Pool A with Australia, Argentina, Spain and New Zealand completing the group.

It is now 40 years since India won the last of their eight Olympic gold medals in hockey at Moscow 1980 with the team failing to reach the semi-finals since then.

Olympic Channel



It's OK for overaged hockey players

By Jugjet Singh

OVERAGED players will be allowed to feature in the men and women's Junior Asia Cups, provided both tournaments are held in the first quarter of next year.

This was confirmed by Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) CEO Datuk Tayyab Ikram yesterday.

The confirmation brought cheer to the Malaysian boys' camp as eight players who turn 22 next year will now be eligible to play in the Junior Asia Cup.

The men and women's Junior Asia Cups double up as qualifiers for the Junior World Cups.

However, the Malaysian women's status quo remains as the trainees will still be under-21 next year.

"The AHF, following the International Hockey Federation endorsement, have agreed to allow those who turn 22 to play in the both Asia Cups, which can only be held next year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The tournaments were postponed to next year due to the pandemic and to be fair, players who turn 22 will be allowed to play provided both events are held in the first quarter of next year.

"If both tournaments are not held by then, we will revert to the Under-21 ruling.

"This is because the Junior World Cup will be too close to call after that," said Tayyab.

Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) president Datuk Seri Subahan Kamal welcomed the gesture.

"It is a fair ruling because the players have been training and preparing for at least half their lives to play in the men's Junior Asia Cup, and it is no fault of theirs that the tournament can't be held as scheduled.

"I am sure the other competing countries will also be happy with the ruling.

"Now, we have eight players who will be eligible to play even though they will turn 22 next year," said Subahan.

The eight trainees who will turn 22 are Aidil Shah (goalkeeper), Azrai Aizad (forward), Shello Silverious (midfield), Nur Asyraf Ishak (defender), Izham Azhar (midfielder), Shafiq Hassan (defender), Nursyahmi Zukifli (midfielder), Adam Aiman (defender).

Meanwhile, the AHF also announced that the men's Asian Champions Trophy will be held on March 11-19 next year in Bangladesh.

The tournament was initially scheduled for November this year.

New Straits Times



Surender Kumar readmitted to hospital after developing swelling on arm


File image of Surender Kumar.   -  Getty Images

Indian hockey team defender Surender Kumar was on Thursday readmitted in a Bengaluru hospital this evening after he developed a swelling on his left arm, just a few days after recovering from COVID-19.

Surender along with five other India players -- skipper Manpreet Singh, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar, goalkeeper Krishan Bahadur Pathak and striker Mandeep Singh -- were on Monday discharged from SS Sparsh Multispeciality hospital in Bengaluru after recovering from the contagious disease.

But after Surender informed the doctors about the swelling on his arm, he was re-admitted to the same hospital as a precautionary measure.

“He has been shifted this evening. During regular online check-up, Surender informed the doctors that he has developed a swelling on left arm. So as a precautionary measure he has been shifted to the same hospital,” a source in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) told PTI.

“He is completely fine. He doesn’t have any COVID symptoms but as a precautionary measure he will undergo all necessary tests to find out if it is related to COVID or not.”

Surender along with the other players were placed under quarantine at its Bengaluru centre after being discharged from the hospital on Monday.

“All the six players are housed in the ground floor of the hostel, where other members of the camp have no access,” SAI had said on Monday.

The six players had returned positive for the virus between August 10 and 12.

Mandeep, who was asymptomatic, was the first to be shifted to the hospital by the SAI after a dip in his blood oxygen level. Later, Manpreet, Surender and three other players were also moved to the same hospital as a precautionary measure.

Currently, 33 male and 24 female players are in Bengaluru for the camp. The light intensity national camp is expected to continue till September 30.

Sportstar



Sardar Singh backs Indian hockey team to shine in Tokyo 2021

Santadeep Dey


Sardar Singh believes India, which last won an Olympic medal in hockey in Moscow 1980, has a good chance to shine in Tokyo 2021.   -  FILE PHOTO/K. MURALI KUMAR

Former hockey captain Sardar Singh believes India, which last won an Olympic medal in hockey in Moscow 1980, has a good chance to come out on top in Tokyo 2021 if the players perform to their full potential.

"We are No. 4 in the world rankings now and that is a positive sign. We have a proper structure in place and there are good coaches to take care of things. I believe all the players should start training for the big stage from now itself and possess the winning mindset. I am sure they will be working on it. All our 16-17 players should perform at the same level. (P.R.) Sreejesh or Manpreet (Singh) alone can't win matches for you. We need everyone. With that consistency, we will be good enough to reach the semifinals or even the finals," said the 34-year-old in the third episode of Sportstar's Star Talk webinar series, moderated by Uthra Ganesan, special correspondent, The Hindu, on Thursday.

"Firstly, whether it is at Tokyo or any other big event, all that our youngsters have to do is what they love the most, which is to play hockey. And that is the primary goal - to play the sport as you know it," added Adrian D'Souza, former goalkeeper of the national team.

Odisha has been at the forefront of the nation's hockey revolution and Vishal K. Dev, commissioner-cum-secretary of the state's Sports and Youth Services, said bagging the elusive medal at the Games will even boost the popularity of the sport.

"Winning a medal will make children want to pick it up. We need a lot more tournaments and exposure for our players. There should be more sub-junior and junior level competitions across the country. Additionally, Hockey India League, which hasn't been organised for the past three years, needs to be revived," he said.

Sportstar



Days after contract renewal, Hockey India’s high performance director David John resigns

It is learnt that the hockey federation has accepted the Australian high-performance director David John's resignation but the Sports Authority of India, his employers on paper, are yet to respond.

By Mihir Vasavda


David John has been associated with Indian hockey for a major part of the last decade. (File)

Hockey India’s high-performance director David John has resigned, just days after his contract was renewed by the sports ministry until September 2021. It is learnt that the federation has accepted the Australian’s resignation but the Sports Authority of India, his employers on paper, are yet to respond.

It is learnt that John has cited personal and health issues as reasons to return to Australia. But according to those in the know, John put in his papers after he was asked to report to the Hockey India office in Delhi every day as well as make trips to training centres around the country in the middle of the pandemic.

When asked about John’s resignation as well as the reasons for it, Hockey India said, “no comments.” John did not respond to text messages.

John, who was employed at a monthly salary of $12,000, has been working from home in New Delhi since the beginning of the lockdown in March. In May, Hockey India’s office had to be shut down after two staffers tested positive for the coronavirus. “David was not comfortable to travel to the office and other cities in the country as it posed health risks. There was a difference of opinion over this issue and he eventually offered to quit,” a source said.

John has been associated with Indian hockey for a major part of the last decade, having first come as the men’s team’s physio along with former coach Michael Nobbs. During that stint, he was credited with improving the players’ fitness levels, first bringing them on par with the rest of the world and then making them better.

He left the team after the 2012 London Olympics but returned in November 2016 as the high-performance director. His appointment raised a few eyebrows as John did not have any prior coaching experience. Since then, however, he has been one of the key figures in Indian hockey, having been closely associated with the men and women’s teams as well as designing Hockey India’s ambitious coaching programme. He also played an important role in the appointment of coaches for the national teams.

His resignation means that even in a year without a lot of sporting action, Indian hockey’s dubious tradition of parting ways with coaches and people in related roles continues.

Indian Express



The moment Twigg & White knew GB's women would win Rio Olympic gold


Georgie Twigg  and Nicola White Rio 2016

At what point did you think Great Britain’s women had secured their first ever Olympic gold almost exactly four years ago?

Before the final even started? When Lily Owsley opened the scoring or Nicola White drew them level? Or did you struggle to believe it even after Hollie Pearne-Webb stroked home the shootout winner?

For Georgie Twigg and White, the realisation that they were about to become ‘hockey’s history makers’ dawned upon them the moment the whistle went at the end of extra time, signalling the game was going to a shootout.

They both recalled that incredible day in the latest episode of #InsideTheCircle: The Podcast with guest host Emily Defroand, giving a fascinating insight into their mindsets heading into the biggest game of their lives.

Twigg recalled: “I think Holland didn’t like playing us. They will always have confidence – they are the world’s best team at the moment and had historically won two gold medals prior to Rio.

“So I don’t think there was any doubts from them going in as they knew they were a good team but I’m sure they were thinking ‘we can get tripped up by them’.

“At points we were almost hanging on, they did have large spells of possession. But as soon as the final whistle went at the end of normal play I remember Kate going past saying ‘yes, we’ve got this!”

“You looked across at the Dutch players and they were genuinely devastated that they hadn’t won in normal time. The coach had her head in her hands. At that point, I knew we were going to win.

“It sounds so easy to say but genuinely the difference in body language between the two teams when that final whistle went was quite unbelievable. Certainly at that point our historical wins against them on penalties [both had been part of the England team that won European gold against the Dutch on a shootout the year before] was paying dividends definitely come that psychological battle.”

Four years of preparation had gone into that two week tournament in Brazil, with a squad of 31 players all giving their all to achieve the ultimate prize.

As White recollected during the podcast, they had planned for nearly every eventuality and when the game went to a shootout they knew exactly what they had to do in order to maximise their chances of winning.

She also knew that the fact they hadn’t won in normal time would be a bitter pill for the Dutch to swallow and that it would give them the perfect chance to take the gold.

“They just know that we have a never-say-die attitude and we fight and fight and fight and don’t give up,” the two-time Olympic medallist said.

“We respected them because they were great players but so were we. We had a culture and an ethos that we won’t give up, we will keep fighting and I think they knew that.

“The fact that they knew we’d brought it back, to them it was like a loss. A draw is a loss to them. It just summed it up in the way they reacted.

“Even in our fitness sessions, Ben Rosenblatt [the team’s S&C coach] would tell us ‘chest up, don’t bend over, keep walking, run it off, run in at half-time’. After the final whistle went, that’s exactly what we did. We all jogged in, wec ame together and it was all positive and it just creates that momentum going into the shuffles.

“If you look at them, they were all down and negative and then we were on it. For those penalty takers it creates so much confidence - you’re saying we’re right behind you, we’ve got this.

“All those things we’ve worked on over so many years, it all comes through at the right time because you’ve trained it.”

Subscribe to Inside The Circle: The Podcast to hear this episode in full and catch up on any others that you may have missed:

Great Britain Hockey media release



Nurse & Griffiths nominated for TASS awards


Tim Nurse - Gareth Griffiths

England Hockey are delighted that U21 internationals Gareth Griffiths and Tim Nurse have been recognised as 2020 TASS Stars Award Finalists.

The duo, both supported by TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme), have been shortlisted in recognition of their fantastic achievements on the sporting field and in their academic studies.

Nurse has been nominated for ‘Athlete of the Year’ alongside beach volleyball brothers Javier and Joaquin Bello and kite foiling’s Francesca Maini. This award is awarded to athletes in ‘recognition of their outstanding achievement this year in their sport and/or study’.

The University of Bath student was named Player of the Tournament as England’s U21 men claimed a historic Junior EuroHockey silver medal last summer. A member of the Great Britain Elite Development Programme (EDP), he then also played a crucial role as GB’s U21 squad defended their Sultan of Johor Cup title in October 2019.

Griffiths has been shortlisted in the ‘Most Committed’ category for athletes who have ‘shown dedication to both study and/or sport, including excellent time management and balancing demands’.

He also formed a crucial part of the England team that claimed their best Junior EuroHockey result in more than 20 years, scoring against The Netherlands in the semi-final. The Nottingham Trent University student, also part of the GB EDP, then joined Nurse as GB’s U21s claimed a second straight Sultan of Johor Cup win with a dramatic victory over India.

The winners for each award will be announced on Twitter on Friday 21 August. Please join us in wishing both of our athletes the very best of luck and congratulate them on a fantastic achievement.

England Hockey Board Media release



Field of Study

By Rachel Dawson (2009-10), three-time Olympian & Former U.S. Women's National Team Athlete



I am an athlete. I play a game called field hockey for a living. My domain of excellence is a 60x100 yard rectangle of artificial turf where, wielding a candy-caned hooked stick, I strategically chase around a plastic ball with my teammates. It’s a silly, old, stick and ball game to which I’ve devoted the longest, most painful hours of my life. Strangely, I’ve fallen in love with it; not so much for its competitive thrills, but for what I’ve learned, and more so, become because of my rigorous, sixteen-year ‘study’ of it. The game has given me a voice, and that voice, like the mind that commands it, has been trained by discipline and diligence, to pursue the monotonous path of daily excellence – to fulfill the promise of higher learning and be a positive contributor to society, day-in, day-out.

More than an athlete, I am a student of sport; I’ve found my calling in the coming together of people to perform odd – seemingly meaningless – tasks exceptionally well: shooting a ball through a hoop, kicking leather through uprights, hitting plastic in a net. I’ve been made privy to the unique body of learning that lives deep within the heart of sport; the emotional stuff that moves human souls so curiously toward transcendence. And like so many others, I often wonder whether, driven by the dollar amount of given outcomes, we have misplaced, momentarily, the true value of sport in society.

I’m not sure. I don’t have the answer. Truth is, I haven’t always held sport in such a high esteem. I grew up on sport. It was all I knew. It was my escape, my change at greatness. I resented it. I thought it was an unworthy cause: a distraction from higher purpose, rather than a means of achieving higher purpose. I derided my mom for failing my intellect. “You should have pushed me into the arts and sciences,” I’d often rant; I blamed my family – my dad, my siblings – for making sport seem like the only way out; the only way to get a good education.

For years, I cascaded along a blurry trajectory, unsure how to mend a heart torn between my pure passion of athletic competition and the unyielding pressure to defy the social stigma associated with being an ‘athlete’. A ridiculous fallacy governed my mind, and shrouded my love of sport in a cloak of shame – that I – an athletic girl from a large family of athletes who grew up in a one bathroom home rules by a single academic mandate – my father’s infamous, “a ‘D’ and you’re done,” decree – never belonged in an elite sphere of higher learning, like college; and since I didn’t belong amongst the academic elite, I got the sense that I was less a person, less a part of society, less-needed, and less capable of playing my role in the world.

I was ashamed of my love of sports. I was ashamed of my family; that we didn’t have astute, worldly conversations around the dinner table; that we didn’t talk politics, or history, or religion. I was ashamed that my mom was a mom and my dad was a landscaper, that they never went to college and that the only think I knew about business was that my dad had to cut enough lawns every month to feed eight hungry mouths.

I went to the University of North Carolina, I desperately wanted to find my place in the classroom; I clothed myself with intellect – chose hard courses, rarely talked sports, and worked hard, really hard. I made it my mission to defy the stigma of jock and prove myself a scholar. For a long time, thought, I felt like an imposture, feigning belonging in the University’s scholarly world of wealth, privilege, and knowledge while denying a thriving existence in its competitive, no nonsense, performance-driven world of sport. Despite my insecurity, I managed good marks, was admitted to Kenan-Flagler Business School, and with time, and searching, I found solace at the University of North Carolina.

I guess I found a place where I belonged, where I could excel, in her classrooms and on her playing fields. Empathetic to my struggle; she valued my athletic talent, demanded that I use it to engage in an honest exploration of excellence while encouraging me to explore new, uncomfortable terrains of learning. The University of North Carolina granted me the freedom to discover my voice in an integrated, high-powered world of athletics and academics. She gave me opportunity, and an empowered sense of self. Even to this day, as I write these words, she fulfills the promise of higher education, making common individuals, like myself, meaningful contributors to our ever-evolving world. For that, I am ever thankful.

USFHA media release



Kenya Hockey Union gets funding to develop sports system

NAIROBI, Kenya – The Kenya Hockey Union (KHU) will this week start a program to develop the national hockey sport system funded by Olympic Solidarity through the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K).

The program will run for three months and will involve coaches, technical officials and players from all over the country.

It will be conducted by an expert from Pakistan, Tahir Zaman who is an International Hockey Federation Trainer and Educator.

This program is aimed at improving the national system of hockey development and build up a sustainable grass root base.

The specific objective is to increase the number of young athletes who can compete in continental and International events and therefore Introduce more competition for young players.

The program will also develop the Hockey 5 Format and Small areas competition at school and club level. NOC-K hopes to promote hockey in schools as a safe game with Olympic values.

One of the main objectives as well is to develop and implement a coaches education system to school Physical education teachers and Senior athletes.

The results to be achieved are to support a sustainable progressive development of Hockey.

Kenya is currently ranked, in the world, Men 48th and 4th in Africa and in women 45th in the World and 3rd in Africa. KHU aims to maintain a top 3 position in Africa and improve the world ranking.

The teams attempted to qualify for Tokyo in the previous All African Games competition in 2019, but were unsuccessful.

This program kicks off four months of NOC-K seminars and training targeting different stakeholders in sports. Most of these had been planned for the year but interrupted by the pandemic, therefore most of the training will be online and where necessary or possible, physical training will be done.

Capital FM, Kenya

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