New Delhi, 26 July 2019: Hockey India on Friday named the 18-member Indian Women’s Hockey team for the forthcoming Tokyo Olympics 2020 Test Event scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan from 17th – 21st August 2019. The Indian team will be Captained by Rani and Vice-Captained by Savita.

Under Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne, the composition of the team has remained similar to the one which participated at the FIH Women’s Series Finals Hiroshima 2019, with the Dutchman having opted for only two changes in the 18-member team selected for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 Test Event. Youngsters Sharmila Devi and Reena Khokhar have come into the team, with Sunita Lakra and Jyoti giving way. Khokhar had been sidelined due to injury but makes a comeback into the side after recovering successfully, while Sharmila Devi will be expecting to make her debut for the national side.

The Indian team, currently ranked No. 10 in the FIH Rankings, will be facing tough challenges as they will be up against the likes of World No. 2 Australia, World No. 11 China and hosts Japan who are currently ranked 14th in the FIH Rankings.

The team consists of experienced Goalkeepers Savita and Rajani Etimarpu, who will look to guard India’s goalpost, while Defenders Deep Grace Ekka, Reena Khokhar, Gurjit Kaur, Salima Tete, and Nisha have also been included in the 18-member team. Midfielders Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam, Nikki Pradhan, Monika, Lilima Minz and Neha Goyal will look to command the midfield. Rani, Navneet Kaur, Vandana Katariya, Lalremsiami, Navjot Kaur and Sharmila Devi are the Forwards who have been picked in the team.

“We are looking forward to playing three top countries at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 Test Event as I rate them all highly. We have selected a squad of 18 players where only 16 players will be allowed to play in accordance to the Olympic standards. I will be very interested to see how we fare against these countries, and what we need to improve for the FIH Olympic Qualifiers because everything that we do, will be focused on that. We will be learning good lessons in this tour regardless of whatever happens,” said Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne looking ahead to the event.

Indian Women’s Hockey Team:

1. Savita (GK) – (Vice Captain)

2. Rajani Etimarpu (GK)

3. Deep Grace Ekka

4. Reena Khokhar

5. Gurjit Kaur

6. Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam

7. Salima Tete

8. Nisha

9. Nikki Pradhan

10. Monika

11. Lilima Minz

12. Neha Goyal

13. Rani – (Captain)

14. Navneet Kaur

15. Vandana Katariya

16. Lalremsiami

17. Navjot Kaur

18. Sharmila Devi

New Delhi, 25 July 2019: Hockey India on Thursday named 18 players for the Indian Men’s team for the Olympic Test Event which is set to be played between 17-21 August 2019 in Japan. 

The team management has decided to rest senior players such as Captain Manpreet Singh, PR Sreejesh and Surender Kumar. The Indian team Chief Coach Graham Reid said that the break will help the players shake off any niggling injuries and get fresh ahead of the Olympic qualifying matches in November.

“We are resting some senior players including Manpreet Singh some of whom have had a very rigorous last 12 months of hockey and will give them a chance to shake off any niggling injuries and get fresh for the next three months of preparation for the November qualifying matches,” said Reid.

In the absence of the senior players, Harmanpreet Singh and Mandeep Singh have been named the Captain and Vice Captain respectively and two players – Ashis Topno and Shamsher Singh have earned their debut spots in the Indian national team. However, experienced striker SV Sunil has returned to the national team after a gap of nine months.

Reid expressed that the Olympic Test Event will give a few players a chance to show their mettle at the international stage.

“With no world ranking points at risk, the Tokyo test event gives us an ideal opportunity to not only get a first hand look at how Tokyo is shaping up for next year’s Olympics, we will also see some players who have not had a chance to show us what they can do on the international stage,” said Reid.

Indian Men’s Team List:

1. Krishan Bahadur Pathak

2. Gurinder Singh

3. Harmanpreet Singh (Captain)

4. Kothajit Singh Khadangbam

5. Hardik Singh

6. Nilakanta Sharma

7. Vivek Sagar Prasad

8. Jaskaran Singh

9. Mandeep Singh (Vice Captain)

10. Gursahibjit Singh

11. Nilam Sanjeep Xess

12. Jarmanpreet Singh

13. Varun Kumar

14. Ashis Topno

15. SV Sunil

16. Gurjant Singh

17. Shamsher Singh

18. Suraj Karkera

Bengaluru, 24 July 2019: With exactly one year for the start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games scheduled from 24 July 2020 to 9 August 2020 with Hockey preliminary round events for men and women starting from 25 July 2020, the Indian Men and Women’s team are working towards ensuring they are part of the Indian contingent. 

“We have a count down chart and we frequently remind ourselves in team meetings about how many days are left for the qualifying and how many days before the first hockey match at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, we are on our toes to qualify,” said Manpreet Singh, Captain of the Indian Men’s Hockey Team. 

This constant reminder also provides a boost for players to improve upon their individual game and ensure they are doing everything they can to contribute to the team’s goals. “It’s not just us players but the Coaching staff too remind us about days left for 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the goals we need to achieve ahead of this milestone event. We have set short timelines to work on our grey areas. We have set short-term goals which includes areas to work on in training, how we intend to play against a particular team at the upcoming event such as Olympic Test event, Belgium Tour and what implications this would have on the Qualifying event in November. We have mapped out every detail to ensure we do better than our previous best,” he said. 

Another most important aspect is to take care of ourselves and avoid any kind of injuries. In this Olympic cycle we have had key players out of action for nearly 8-10 months and this is something we definitely want to avoid in this crucial year ahead,” added the midfielder who led the team to a win at the FIH Series Finals in Bhubaneswar in June. 

Meanwhile, Indian Women’s Team Captain Rani said, “We have all made personal sacrifices to ensure the team is put ahead of everything else and we are working towards one goal which is to qualify for the Olympics. It’s very important for us to reinstate that qualifying for Rio Olympics was not a one-off incident and that hockey fans can expect the women’s team to create good results at major competitions.” 

She further added that the recent success of fellow Indian women in other disciplines is an inspiration for her team to exceed expectations. “The recent performances of Hima Das and Dutee Chand proves that Indian women are rising to the occasion and are working towards making India a dominant contingent at the world level. Their performances inspires us too and these are athletes we are in touch with and we often end up sharing notes on our training and competitions. Its important to have such positive results in the build up to our qualification event and we are really hoping to play in front of a home crowd in November as the last time we played in India was in 2012 Olympic Qualifier in New Delhi,” Rani added. 

Bengaluru, 18 July 2019: The next three months will be all about bringing their best hockey to the fore and peaking at the right time to ensure the Indian Men’s Hockey Team seal their berth for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. In this pursuit, the core group has been put under the grind with special focus on their defending abilities. “The next three months is critical for us and whatever we are doing is with focus on sealing our Olympic Qualification in November,” asserted Indian Men’s Team Skipper Manpreet Singh on the sidelines of the on-going National Coaching Camp in SAI, Bengaluru. 

The team is preparing for the forthcoming Olympic Test event starting 17 August where they will play New Zealand, Malaysia and hosts Japan. This event will be followed by India’s Tour of Belgium in September. “The good thing working under Graham Reid is that he has closely followed India’s performance over the years and he understands our game well so in that sense he isn’t changing our style and continues to reinforce that our attack and counter-attacks are our biggest strengths but the focus of our training is to ensure we are defending and finishing well with continued emphasis on speed and fitness,” Manpreet opines. 

Though there are some injuries in the team with experienced midfielder Chinglensana Singh still recovering from an ankle fracture, while forward Lalit Upadhyay is recovering from a back strain and youngster Sumit undergoing rehab following an injury during the FIH Series Finals Bhubaneswar, Manpreet believes there are enough options in the core group who can soak up the pressure of International hockey. “These players are missed in the team and we are hopeful they will be fully fit by the Olympic Qualifiers. But I believe we have good players in the core group with International experience who can step up and show their worth for a place in the team by giving their 100 per cent in the Camp,” Manpreet said. 

He further added that it’s important for the team to not come under pressure and just focus on their own performance. “Our main priority right now is to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games but at the same time we don’t want to come under pressure and be worried about who our opponent is going to be. Our focus right now is to work on our shortcomings and improve collectively as a team,” he said. 

Lausanne, Switzerland: The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has received bidding dossiers from Australia, Germany, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and Spain to host the next edition of FIH’s flagship event for Men or Women. Bidding countries had to indicate until the deadline of 31 January 2019 also their preferred time window, either 1-17 July 2022 or 13-29 January 2023.

The following bids have been received:

For the preferred time window 1-17 July 2022:
– Germany: Men’s or Women’s World Cup
– Malaysia: Men’s World Cup
– Spain: Men’s World Cup

For the preferred time window 13-29 January 2023:
– Australia: Women’s World Cup
– India: Men’s or Women’s World Cup
– New Zealand: Women’s World Cup

FIH will now start the evaluation process of the bids. The Executive Board will make the final decision on both hosts in June 2019.

FIH CEO Thierry Weil said: “FIH is glad to have received such strong bids. This confirms how appealing our events are. We’re looking forward to two great FIH World Cups, both Men’s and Women’s, and a lot of excitement for players and fans!”

Chennai (Tamil Nadu), 20 January 2019: Hockey Unit of Tamil Nadu beat Central Secretariat 4-3 in a high-voltage Final encounter to win the 9th Hockey India Senior Men National Hockey Championship 2019 (B Division) on Sunday. Earlier, in the Bronze Medal Match, Sports Authority of India beat Bengaluru Hockey Association 5-1.

In a tense final match, the two teams enthralled the evening spectators as they fought to stay in lead from hooter-to-hooter. It was Hockey Unit of Tamil Nadu who stayed ahead in goal tally with their first goal in the 12th minute through D Muthuseelvan. V Vinod Rayer (21′), P Dhamu (38′), V Vinodhan (56′) scored a goal each to put their team in lead while Govind Singh Rawat (20′, 34′) scored twice to equalise and G Gnanavel (41′) scored a goal to equalise in the third quarter which saw the match remain tense in the fourth quarter. But the home team remained calm and showcased good attack to find an opportunity in the 56th minute to win the match.

Earlier, Sports Authority of India were dominating as they beat Bengaluru Hockey Association 5-1 in the Bronze Medal match. Vishal (12′), Rahul Kumar (22′), Boby Singh Dhami (37′), Naveen (45′) and Mohit Kumar (56′) scored for the winning team while Harish Mutagar (12′) scored the lone goal for Bengaluru Hockey Association.

Pune (Maharashtra), 17 January 2019: The Semi-Finals in the Under-17 Women’s hockey competition of the 2nd Khelo India Youth Games 2019 took place here today which saw Jharkhand and Haryana advance to the Final to set up an exciting encounter for the Gold Medal. Jharkhand made their way to the Final with a 4-3 victory over Odisha in the first Semi-Final, while Haryana outplayed Punjab to defeat them 4-0 in the second Semi-Final.

It was a match of two halves in the first Semi-Final as it was Odisha who took a 3-0 lead after just 23 minutes. But Jharkhand made a stunning comeback in the third and fourth quarters to come from behind to secure a 4-3 win. Goals for Jharkhand were scored by Sanjana Horo (32′), Dipti Kullu (38′), Poonam Mundu (48′) and Beauty Dung Dung (60′) while it was Neha Lakra (6′), Mukta Jojo (15′) and Jyoti Chhatri (23′) who had given Odisha the lead in the crucial encounter.

The second Semi-Final saw Haryana dominate the match from the opening quarter itself and produce a stunning display to defeat Punjab 4-0. A successful Penalty Corner from Neelam in the 28th minute saw Haryana take an important lead in the match, which was then doubled in the 47th minute through a Penalty Stroke by Deepika. Haryana’s Neelam scored off a Penalty Corner again in the 50th minute to extend her team’s lead to three goals, and it was Manju Chorsiya who scored from a Penalty Corner in the 53rd minute to secure the victory which ensures Haryana’s berth in the Final.

Jharkhand and Haryana will contest in the Final of the Under-17 Women’s hockey competition in the 2nd Khelo India Youth Games 2019 will take place here on Saturday. 19th January 2019 at 1100hrs IST. While, Odisha and Punjab will be competing for the Bronze Medal at 0900hrs IST.