‘Prepared to play eight games’: Marijne on India girls’ group fitness.
KEY POINTS :
- With the recovery period associated with Covid, how are the Indian players’ fitness levels at this point 30 days before Tokyo 2020?
- With a month left for the Olympics, the Indian players have recovered and are training hard at the SAI Centre before the multi-sporting event.
In overdue March this yr, some of the Covid cases broke out at the Indian women’s group hockey camp on the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Bengaluru.
As a result, the team captain Rani Rampal, who can be leading the crew at the imminent Tokyo Olympics starting from a subsequent month, changed into a few of the players who had been tested effective for the virus.
With a month left for the Olympics, the Indian gamers have recovered and are education tough on the SAI Centre before the multi-sporting event. However, with India set to face numerous better-ranked teams, health would be a key factor in figuring out how they fare inside the lengthy match amid humid situations in Tokyo.
With the healing duration related to Covid, how are the Indian players’ fitness tiers at this factor 30 days earlier than Tokyo 2020?
“We are properly. Last week, we played 4-five matches. The results had been good. Of direction, we do the entirety with GPS so Wayne Lombard (Strength and Conditioning Coach) can see exactly where we’re,” Sjoerd Marijne said in response to a query posed using Hindustan Times at a virtual press conference on Thursday.
”And if he is happy, then I am additionally glad. What we’re now doing inside the last section is that we desire to create gamers experience light-footed. So the intensity is truly excessive, but we do no longer educate for terribly lengthy anymore. Because now we’re operating closer to that closing element,” he delivered.
“Of direction, we’re training to play eight matches, and we’re organized to try this. We wish to do that. All our training are above in shape-intensity. So this means matches will be simpler for them than they did within the education session. So, we’re growing that very heavy environment,” Marijne similarly explained.
Marijne, in addition, went directly to strain that the Indian fans need to accept the realities of the opposition. This is in front of the girls’ crew in Tokyo and brought that the expectancies from the team need to be primarily based on these realities.
“What I see, what I listen, and what I read around me is that the expectations in India are very excessive approximately Indian girls crew. If you’re practical, only groups are decrease-ranked than us – Japan and South Africa.
I don’t know on which those expectancies are primarily based. But, I assume probably due to the fact we did nicely within the past, within the remaining four years,” Marijne said.
“But even then, we must be sensible. We specialize in accomplishing the quarterfinals. From there on, anything can happen. It does not mean I don’t think we are right enough, but it is pretty much realistic, going from match to healthy. I assume it is very important at this point. Also, don’t make the expectations higher than the truth is,” he added.
With the Covid ruling out the Indian crew’s remote places tours earlier than the Olympics, there may be a subject that the lack of practice matches may pose a large assignment.
Marijne spoke on those concerns and admitted that it would be something that could affect the Indian crew’s overall performance in Tokyo.
“It’s like mastering your exams. I have a daughter studying for tests inside the Netherlands. She is doing her homework truly well. Her homework can be in comparison to our preparations,” Marijne said.
“We are education, and we’re doing everything we will. Reading training, mental periods, team-building, the whole thing. But one element my daughter is likewise doing is doing take a look at exams.
That helps her how the questions might be requested. It allows her to take that remaining leap forward and build self-belief. You can examine these test checks with our exercise suits – and we don’t have that,” Marijne stated.
“We found out, and we studied, we did the whole thing we can, however with the loss of exercise suits, we do not have the benchmark. So our simplest benchmark is from January and February from Argentina and Germany tours.
But after those months, we’ve got, in reality, laboured tough. So now we have to see if that become sufficient for the Olympics. I even have loads of self-belief in what we’ve achieved, but we should see due to the fact we don’t know.
“A few different countries performed European Cup, so they had the match under high stress on every occasion, the gamers needed to make decisions. Some of these things you can not teach.
It is what it’s miles. We are not complaining, and we are not struggling with it. We are just controlling what we will, and this is our education classes and our intensity,” Marijne added.
‘Every athlete feels the strain’: Rani Rampal.
This would be the first time the Indian women’s hockey group could participate in consecutive Olympics. With the Indian crew having eight players who have also been part of the crew at the Rio Olympics in 2016, there are expectancies that India may also reach further this time around.
“There is a strain on each athlete before each event. Even if a team had won a medal in the Olympics and went to the Olympics, they nonetheless experience the stress. It is like an examination, and it does now not remember how a lot you put together.
You constantly experience a level of tension before the exam. An athlete feels the identical manner,” Rani Rampal stated when requested approximately she offers with the stress of expectancies.
“So, it’s far upon us how we manage this. Feeling strain is pretty ordinary, but we have learnt how to manage this stress, especially amid the Covid instances. It becomes an assignment to educate collectively.
Our analytical educate Janneke Schopman has laboured with us on how we control our respiratory, how we can live within the present and maintain us calm, that’s assisting the team loads,” she signed off.
