Star players from the historic Olympic bronze medal-winning Indian men's hockey team will arrive in Bhubaneswar on Sunday for the national coaching camp.
The coaching camp commenced on Wednesday as part of their preparations for the Asian Champions Trophy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The 30-member Indian men's hockey core probable group will camp in Bhubaneswar till December 9. The group includes Manpreet Singh and PR Sreejesh who will be conferred with the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award on Saturday in New Delhi.
The group also includes Harmanpreet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Surender Kumar, Nilakanta Sharma, Sumit, Hardik Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mandeep Singh, Shamsher Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Varun Kumar who were all conferred with the Arjuna Award for their historic performance in Tokyo Olympics.
Vivek Sagar Prasad, who is also in New Delhi for the Arjuna Award ceremony, will join the senior men's camp after his campaign with the India Colt's team at the FIH Odisha Hockey Men's Junior World Cup which concludes on December 5.
The Olympic heroes will join the rest of the members in the core group who reported in Bhubaneswar on November 10.
The 30-member group also includes Akashdeep Singh, Gurinder Singh, Jarmanpreet Singh, Krishan B Pathak, Suraj Karkera, Jaskaran Singh, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Raj Kumar Pal, Gursahibjit Singh, Dipsan Tirkey, Shilanand Lakra, Mandeep Mor, Ashis Kumar Topno and Suman Beck.
It will be good to have the senior men's team train in Bhubaneswar as the weather here is almost similar to that of Dhaka. It will be great for the team to train in these conditions and get acclimatised. We will also be playing a few internal matches between the senior and the junior core probables that will surely help in our preparations for the Junior Men's World Cup.”
-Graham Reid, head coach
Speaking about the national coaching camp, chief coach Graham Reid said, "It will be good to have the senior men's team train in Bhubaneswar as the weather here is almost similar to that of Dhaka. It will be great for the team to train in these conditions and get acclimatised. We will also be playing a few internal matches between the senior and the junior core probables that will surely help in our preparations for the Junior Men's World Cup," said Reid.
"The season next year will be busy for the senior squad with back-to-back major international tournaments and it will be great to kick off the year by defending the Asian Champions Trophy. We had a good camp in SAI, Bengaluru before the team went on a short break for Diwali and I believe this break would have done the players a lot of good to return to the camp feeling fresh mentally," he added.
The Asian Champions Trophy will be held from December 14 to 22 and will see defending champions India, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia and hosts Bangladesh in the fray.
