India Women's Hockey Team Coach Sets Clear Target For LA 2028 Olympics: "Bigger Goal Is Medal"
Dutch coach Sjoerd Marijne is aiming for the stars with the Indian women's hockey team, with his biggest goal being to secure a podium finish at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Dutch coach Sjoerd Marijne is aiming for the stars with the Indian women's hockey team, with his biggest goal being to secure a podium finish at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics -- a feat he narrowly missed at the Tokyo Games. Under Marijne, the Indian women produced their best-ever Olympic performance by finishing a creditable fourth in Tokyo in 2021. The Dutchman, who coached India from 2017 to 2021, is now looking to go one step further after returning to the role earlier this year.
To achieve that goal, he has enlisted the help of an inspirational speaker to motivate his players, and the move has already yielded encouraging results, with India winning the FIH Nations Cup this year to earn promotion back to the elite FIH Pro League for next season.
"...There is an inspirational speaker, who talks about scaling bigger mountains like Kilimanjaro. Our bigger goal is to get a medal at the 2028 Olympics, and for that we have to work towards getting to our first base camp. Out first base camp was the FIH Nations Cup and qualifying for the World Cup. If you need to reach the top every time you need to reach the base camp first. We are climbing that mountain together and we are reaching for the stars and if you reach for the stars you will fall on the highest mountain," Marijne told PTI in an exclusive interview.
"The real star for me is to finish on the podium in 2028.
"That is a process, that is about small steps you are taking, it's about recovery, bringing a good staff together, bringing the right players, mixing talent, mixing seniority with juniors. Everything is about building a culture and every person in that culture needs to be the best version of themselves." Marijne said his goal was to scale the "Mount Everest" of Indian women's hockey by winning an Olympic medal, and to achieve that, he has sought professional help to strengthen the players' mental resilience and motivation.
"I spoke about a climber who summited Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro and his name is Hemant Gupta. I invited him to speak with the team about the challenges he faced and working as a team to climb the Everest." A no-nonsense coach, Marijne has always emphasised building unity and a strong team culture -- qualities he felt were missing after his departure following the Tokyo Olympics.
"Something I really like is discipline, I like structure. The most important thing is discipline, focussing on the structure. I always put really high demands... I am asking things what I think they can do. I am asking for focussing on the team and not individual process and those are the most important things. Finding that balance is working well so far.
"At this moment it's about pushing them and getting a higher level every time -- raising the benchmark." He said in any team sport, individual performances hardly have any significance.
"The most important thing is that players are focussed on the team and not on their individual goals. I believe if you focus on team goal, you will reach your individual goal and if you focus on your individual goals you will never reach your team goal, and I believe that is the main thing which we have done." Marijne also emphasised on the importance of mental well-being of players to succeed in modern-day sport.
"I think mental aspect is 70 to 80 per cent of the sport now, the difference of being the top player is mentality, it's not about hard work, but performing under pressure, which is the most difficult thing. That is something we are focussing on," he said.
"We are more busy with the profiling of players, what we are doing is we are hiring someone who is profiling players on things like behaviour, introvert or extrovert etc. That way I know better which button I need to press to get the best out of them, what way do I need to approach them. From there on, if I approach them in the right way they are more comfortable and they can perform better." Talking about his expectations from the upcoming World Cup, Marijne refrained from making any prediction but said India is capable of creating a few upsets.
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