Hockey India's High Performance Director Roelant Oltmans has set his sights on winning the gold medal in this year's Incheon Asian Games which would give the erstwhile champions of the game a direct ticket to the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Oltmans said the senior men's team showed signs of improvement during the just-concluded Hockey World League Final, where the host nation led by Sardar Singh stunned Olympic champions Germany 5-4 in their classification match and also put up a good show against Belgium, though they lost the game in the closing minutes of play.
"The aim would be to do good this year given the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, World Cup and Champions Trophy. The year is important for Indian hockey. My most important priority is the Incheon Asian Games because that would act as a direct qualifier to the 2016 Rio Olympics. We are looking to get direct qualification," Oltmans told PTI in an interview.
"We put up a good show against Germany and beat them in a classification match. It's a great morale booster. Obviously, we wanted to finish higher in the tournament but we are getting closer to our aim, which is to improve as a team. The team is adapting to the changing coaching strategies. We played some good hockey in parts in the HWL Final. We have to learn from these matches," he said.
India finished sixth ahead of Germany and Argentina in the HWL Final and Oltmans said his wards' performance in the eight-nation event showed that the team was moving in the right direction.
"We are not among the higher-ranked teams in the world but surely we are improving. I am happy where we are at the moment. The people of this country wants good performance from its hockey team on a consistent basis and for that we have to do well. It's about consistently performing against the best teams.
"We are on the right path and we are showing signs of improvement. We can't predict the outcome when we enter into a tournament but the aim is always to do well. We have progressed as a hockey team and I am sure that in a couple of years' time, we would be able to win medals," he said.
Placed 10th in the FIH rankings, the Indians had plenty of positives to take from this tournament as the sixth place finish will definitely give a major boost to their world rankings.
