Indian men target Olympic podium

Hockey coach Reid says team would do well to focus on the present

The Indian men’s hockey team knows there are expectations of ending an Olympic medal drought and coach Graham Reid fancies his boys’ chances but insists that the team would do well to keep focus on the present. “There are 11 teams other than us at the Olympics and if you see in the last two years, we have played and beaten all except Canada, who we haven’t had a chance to play. That’s an important point and we will definitely be trying to jump onto that podium but our primary target will be to first qualify for the quarterfinals and then move forward from there,” Reid said at a virtual interaction on Friday. He did admit that the absence of competitive matches would be a factor but denied reading too much into it. “Honestly, no one knows how much it might affect the team’s preparation. But we did have two very good tours coming into this year after a long period of playing internal matches and one of the things we have been talking about is the strength of the daily training environment and how important it is to play those internal games at the competitive level of intensity,” he explained.