2021 Tokyo Olympics | Recent tours gave Indian hockey team fresh perspective ahead of Games, admits Vivek Sagar Prasad

The Indian hockey team have been on a couple of tours recently, to Argentina and Europe has performed exceedingly well in both. It was a few days ago that the men in blue scripted back-to-back victories in the FIH Pro League against reigning Olympics champions Argentina in their own backyard.

Even though India is the most successful nation at the Olympics, in hockey, with eight gold medals, they have failed to secure a medal since 1980. With India gearing up to break the jinx in the upcoming Tokyo Games, Vivek Sagar Prasad, a member of the core group, feels that the recent tours to Argentina and Europe have given the team a fresh perspective ahead of the main event.

"These tours against world-class teams have given us a fresh perspective in our preparations for the Olympic Games," said Vivek Sagar Prasad, as reported by PTI

"Basis data received from these tours about our performance as a team and as individual players, we have all been given specific tasks by chief coach Graham Reid to work on and improve. I feel we are moving in the right direction ahead of the Olympics,” added the player.

Even though the pandemic had stalled international matches in 2020, the entire hockey team, stationed at the SAI centre, in Bengaluru, worked on several aspects of the game, like fitness and coordination. According to Vivek, the recent results are the outcome of the hard work they have put, in the past year or so.

“Last year, the way we worked as a unit has helped. We focussed on fitness, on setting up good connection between midfield and the forward-line, as well as work on keeping momentum high in the last quarter — all these things helped improve our performance,” added the Tokyo-bound athlete.