Bhubaneswar: The Indian men's hockey team is all set to take on Russia in FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers Odisha which are scheduled to take place at the Kalinga Hockey Stadium here on November 1 and 2.
Ahead of the qualifiers, Indian hockey head coach Graham Reid, in an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat, claimed that the hockey tournament at the Olympic Games is very tough and it's not easy to win a medal in the event, hence India will have to leave no stone unturned in order to finish on the podium.
"The Olympic Games is a very difficult hockey tournament and it's very difficult to win. Every team is trying its best for four years to crack the best opportunity for them to win. So, it's not an easy tournament to be successful at. Therefore we have to do everything we can to try and lift the performance of the team and that's what we are trying to do at the moment," 55-year-old Reid said.
Meanwhile, the winners of the FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers Odisha will qualify for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The winners will be determined as follows:
- Teams will be ranked according to the number of points each has accumulated in both matches (for each match, 3 points are awarded to the winner, 1 point to each team in the event of a draw).
- However, if there is equality among the two teams, then the teams will be placed according to their respective goal difference. But if the equality still remains then a shoot-out competition will be played to get the winner.
- Earlier, Hockey India announced the 18-man Men's team for the upcoming qualifiers. The squad will be led by Manpreet Singh.
Indian Men's Hockey team: PR Sreejesh, Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Harmanpreet Singh, Birendra Lakra, Surender Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Rupinder Pal Singh, Amit Rohidas, Manpreet Singh (Captain), Nilakanta Sharma, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, SV Sunil (Vice-Captain), Mandeep Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Simranjeet Singh.
