BENGALURU, 30 Aug: Indian women\u2019s hockey vice-captain Deep Grace Ekka on Tuesday said the Birmingham Commonwealth Games bronze medal is a thing of the past now and the team is focussing on winning this year\u2019s FIH Nations Cup, a qualifier for next season\u2019s Pro League.
\nIndia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, South Africa and hosts Spain are the eight particip-ating teams in the Nations Cup to be held in Valencia from December 10 to 17.
\nThe winner of the tournament will directly qualify for next season\u2019s FIH Pro League.
\n\u201cWe did well in Birmingham, but now that is a closed chapter. We have had a good break and now we have to get back to work. I am sure chief coach Janneke Schopman will assess our previous performance and plan the upcoming days in camp accordingly,\u201d Ekka said in a Hockey India release.
\n\u201cWe have to do well in Spain in the FIH Women\u2019s Hockey Nations Cup, and for that the preparation begins from today. It won\u2019t be easy but training hard and doing the right things repeatedly during our sessions is the only thing we can do,\u201d she explained.
\n\u201cOur aim in Spain will be to progress to the FIH Hockey Women\u2019s Pro League and for that we have to win the Nations Cup. Our target is in front of us, now it\u2019s up to us to make sure we build in the correct direction.\u201d
\nThe Indian women had finished a creditable third in their debut FIH Pro League outing in 2021-22 season.
\nThe defender, a veteran of 240 caps, however, said the podium finish in Birmingham will do wonders in lifting the confidence of the team.
\n\u201cWe would have liked to play the final in Birmingham for sure, but winning bronze was a big achievement for us. Standing on the podium is a moment we will never forget. It\u2019s a big morale booster for the entire team.\u201d
\nThe Indian women\u2019s team on Tuesday assembled for a long preparatory camp at the SAI centre in Bengaluru after enjoying a good break following a successful outing in Birmingham. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BENGALURU, 30 Aug: Indian women\u2019s hockey vice-captain Deep Grace Ekka on Tuesday said the Birmingham Commonwealth Games bronze medal is a thing of the past now and the team is focussing on winning this year\u2019s FIH Nations Cup, a qualifier for next season\u2019s Pro League. India, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, South Africa and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-199229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}