Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], March 8 : India goalkeeper PR Sreejesh stated that the team is working hard and qualifying for the quarter-finals will be a major thing for the team in the upcoming Paris Olympics.
Indian men's hockey team has been placed in a tough Pool B alongside current Olympic champions and World No. 2 Belgium, Australia, Rio Games gold medal winner Argentina, New Zealand and Ireland.
Sreejesh talked about the pressure of playing in the Olympics and the team's preparations for the upcoming Paris Olympics which will kick off on July 26.
"The major and the important thing for us is to qualify for quarter-finals and to finish the top 4. We can make a schedule for the preparations of 2-3 months, we will make our strategy on which team we will be spending more time with and so on. To keep the expectation alive, we are working hard. Next month we are going to Australia to play a test match. The Olympics is not easy as the pressure, scenario and atmosphere are totally different," Sreejesh toldat the RevSportz's Trailblazers 2.0 Conclave.
The hockey tournaments of the XXXIII Olympiad will be played in the historic venue of Yves-du-Manoir Stadium - an Olympic Games arena in 1924! - in Colombes, near Paris. Twelve men's and an equal number of women's national teams will compete to clinch the highly coveted Olympic medals, including Dutch women and Belgian men who will compete in the event as the reigning gold medalists from the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
India will be relying on the 35-year-old goalkeeper, who is regarded as one the best in the world. Sreejesh has already represented India at the Olympics three times so far and was a key figure in leading the nation to a bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics 2020. He played a pivotal role in breaking India's 41 years of wait for a medal in hockey.
Both men's and women's hockey tournaments at Paris 2024 will get underway on July 27. The first match of Hockey at Paris 2024 will be an all-European affair with Great Britain taking on Spain in the men's Pool A match. The Harmanpreet Singh-led team will kick off its campaign at the Paris 2024 Olympics on July 27 against New Zealand.
Pool A: Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, France and South Africa
Pool B: Belgium, India, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and Ireland.
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