Kiren Rijiju: Confident that Indian hockey teams will do well in Tokyo

The Sports Minister also inaugurated a new regional centre of the Sports Authority of India in Punjab.

Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Kiren Rijiju, has confidently stated that India’s men’s and women’s hockey teams will do well in the Tokyo Olympics. He revealed that the players are being provided with top facilities and best support systems that will enable them to perform commendably in the mega-tournament.

“I'm saying it with full confidence and hopeful that both Men's and Women's Hockey team will do well in Tokyo Olympics. Our Boys and Girls are really working very hard. We are providing them top facilities and best support systems,” Rijiju tweeted. ANI has reported that around 600-650 young athletes aged between 15-21 years have commenced hockey activities. They have been regularly attending the district-level camps conducted for the sport in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Due to Covid-19 pandemic, the training sessions had been disrupted by the nationwide and then local lockdowns. Now, these upcoming players are indulging in basic drills and thereby easing their way into the sport as attempts are made to improve the infrastructure for hockey at the grassroots levels.

Furthermore, Rijiju inaugurated a new regional centre of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) at Zirakpur, Punjab. This branch of SAI is slated to be one of the important branches of the apex national sports body in northern India.

The sports minister mentioned that he will personally visit the centre once the Covid-19 situation improves. “Inaugurated New SAI Centre's building in Zirakpur, Punjab. It will further provide better facilities to our young athletes in the entire North Indian States and UTs of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be included,” Kiren Rijiju tweeted.

The Tokyo Olympics is set to be held from July 23-August 8, 2021. Initially supposed to be conducted in 2020, it had to be postponed due to the global pandemic. However, numerous qualifying tournaments need to be completed to determine the Olympians who will participate in the quadrennial event.

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