New Delhi, 30 December 2020: Women win. Women are first. Indian women’s hockey team will break the COVID-19 induced hiatus on competitive hockey with an abroad tour. As many as 25 Indian women are all set to visit distant Argentina in four days’ time to play first of their international outing in almost an year on 17th January. It will be a long, grinding 8-match Series against the world’s top Las Leonas for the visitors who are clear seven rungs below their rivals in the FIH Ranking. India and Argentina are top ranked teams in their continents.
The tour is a doube delight. It breaks the lull of nearly a year and is also their first tour in the Olympic year 2021. The 25 players and 7 support staff will observe strict bio-bubble environ in Argentina. It will be interesting to see how the new concept of players inside and outside the room will play out.
The last International tour for India was in January 2020, a 5-match Series in New Zealand. The Indian Women played both the New Zealand & Great Britain women in the 5-match series and were victorious in 3 of the 5 matches that they played.
Over the past months, Hockey India, in coordination with a number of countries was engaged in ensuring international competitions for the Indian teams as part of their preparations for the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games. It’s been the top priority to ensure the best interest of the teams to receive necessary match practice in a safe environment after the kind of year 2020 was where hardly any tournaments were held due to the pandemic hit year.
“I am happy that after one year we are able to play international matches. This tour will give us information for the next step to be made in our preparations for the Tokyo Olympic Games. I want to thank Hockey India for their efforts to make this possible and thank SAI for their quick response,” expressed Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne.
Robust bio-bubble to ensure safety: Hockey India and the host National Association have planned to create a bio bubble in Argentina for both the Argentine and the Indian team. The Indian Women’s Team will be staying in a hotel where a provision to have separate rooms/halls for the team for all the meals, team meetings, sessions etc have been made. The accommodation will be on twin sharing basis, where the room sharing partners will remain same throughout the tour who will also be same even in case of the seating arrangement in the team coach/bus, this has been planned carefully keeping in mind all necessary requirements.
The team members will not be moving out of the bubble and meeting any third-party source as even while travelling to the match/training venue the team will be travelling in a dedicated transport which will only take upto 80% capacity. The local resources along with the team eg. Team bus/coach, drivers, support staff will all remain the same throughout the tour to avoid any lapses in any way possible. There will be no movement for members to move out of the hotel except for training and match days.
“This tour has been planned very carefully keeping in mind the safety of players and we are truly grateful to Hockey India and SAI for ensuring we resume competition despite the ongoing pandemic. We have a little over 200 days before we arrive in Tokyo for the Olympic Games in July 2021 and it was very important to play matches against a strong team like Argentina. The team is really excited for this opportunity and has been keenly looking forward to this tour, this exposure will make us understand the level we are at after nearly a five-month long National Coaching Camp in Bengaluru,” stated Rani Rampal, Captain of the Indian Women’s Hockey Team.
The entire Indian contingent will undergo a Covid-19 RT-PCR Test 72 hours prior to their departure from New Delhi, India. Though there is no requirement of quarantine upon arrival in Argentina, the team will still be following all safety and health measures as advised by the respective Governments of India & Argentina. Further the teams will also be following the Hockey India SOPs as available on the Hockey India website.