Focus on regaining fitness as India hockey camp resumes

The Indian women's hockey team goalkeeper Savita says the coronavirus-forced break provided them a perfect opportunity to self-evaluate and analyse life on and off the field as the national camp resumed here on Wednesday after a month.

Having completed their 14-day self-isolation period, the Indian senior men and women core probables resumed training with the national camp, which is expected to continue till September 30 at SAI South Centre. "When you are a professional athlete, it gets really hectic sometimes...As such you don't really get the chance to introspect at length, but these few months and especially the past 14 days, I've had the chance to look back on a lot of things and understand myself better," said Savita. "What I've realised is that this is the only time I might get in my life where I can analyse a lot of things - personal and professional - and work towards bettering them...I totally believe that it has been one of the most important phases in my life."

Savita in action (Photo: Hockey India)

Barring the six COVID-19 recovered male players, including skipper Manpreet Singh, all members of the men and women teams resumed training with light activities on Wednesday. The six COVID recovered players including Manpreet, Surender Kumar, Jaskaran Singh, Varun Kumar, Krishan B Pathak and Mandeep Singh, who were discharged from a city hospital on Monday, are currently in self isolation inside the SAI campus here.

"We have to get back to full fitness so we will be including outdoor running, high-intensity workouts and a bit of stick-work to our schedule," Savita said. "We started today with an outdoor exercise session maintaining social distancing, and will be resuming sports activities on the hockey pitch to get our rhythm back while also following safety protocols as stated in the SOPs."

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