Sport - Hockey

Four coaches to visit China for the Games

NEW DELHI: Indian hockey teams may have failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, but there will be four Indian coaches visiting China for the Games to observe the competition, and prepare their project report for the revival of the game in the country.

After an exhaustive meeting with a galaxy of Olympians of different eras, the chairman of the hockey ad-hoc committee, Suresh Kalmadi, said that it was decided to send coaches M.K. Kaushik, A.K. Bansal, Rajender Singh and A.B. Subbaiah, to the Beijing Games, as the first step to put a concrete programme in place.

“It was a good meeting and we got excellent suggestions. We are all determined to revive Indian hockey. There will be a lot of competitions and we will restart the national championship. We have also formed various committees and drawn a pool of about 20 coaches, to cater to various sections, both men and women,” said Kalmadi.

In another interesting decision, it was announced that the captain of the Indian team that won the World Cup in 1975, Ajit Pal Singh, had been appointed as the chairman of the selection committee in place of Aslam Sher Khan.

“Indian hockey is not in a good situation, but it is not so bad also. I think we are seventh or eighth in the world, ahead of countries like South Africa, Canada and even China. It was our bad luck that we didn’t qualify. Every effort will be made to revive the game, and we need the support of the media,” said Ajit Pal.

Jagbir Singh was the first among the Olympians to address the media and talked about rebuilding the hockey nurseries in the country, like Bhopal, Uttar Pradesh, and some parts of Punjab etc.

Coach Kaushiksaid that every effort should be made to achieve transparency in selection.

Coach Bansal stressed that he could see a “ray of hope,” as the first step had been taken in getting everyone together to promote the game. — Special Correspondent

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