`Veerappan effect’ – halts hockey camp

The team will regroup in New Delhi, on August 16 before leaving for the holding camp at Gold Coast in Australia the next day.

The final two-day trials to select a 22-member squad on Sunday and Monday were cancelled and even K Jothikumaran, the honorary secretary of the Indian Hockey Federation, who is also the manager of the Olympic-bound team, failed to reach Bangalore on time. Transport links to Bangalore were soon cut-off as riots which started in Bangalore spread to other parts of Karnataka. The train services were disrupted for the past two days.

As a precautionery measure, security was beefed up at the KSCA Stadium where the Indian hockey team was accommodated.

Acclimatisation: The Indian team will be arriving in Brisbane a month prior to the start of the Olympics to get used to the weather. After a week’s training at the venue (near Brisbane), the final team will be selected and six of the players will return to India, according to Jothikumaran. Olympic hockey competitions begin on September 16 at Homebush Bay.

He said that the list of the hockey contingent would be submitted to Indian Olympic Association on August 21 or 22. Besides the players, chief coach Vasudevan Baskaran, assistant coach Harinder Singh, trainer Ramesh and Dr Ramesh will be travelling with the team Down Under. The NOC has to release the entire Indian Olympic contingent along with the participants’ names from other disciplines by August 25, the last date for submitting lists to the Olympic organisers.

Programme cancelled: The Karnataka State Hockey Association (KSHA) who provided the artificial turf for the Indian team’s practice sessions cancelled a scheduled inauguration of lights which were installed recently at the Akkithimmanahalli stadium, the home of KSHA.

The team stayed at the Karnataka State Cricket Association’s Club House to avail the cricket ground for fitness sessions. They have been travelling to the Hockey turf, a couple of kilometres away. The Indian camps are usually held at the synthetic surface at the Sports Authority of India campus at Kengeri, 20 km for the heart of the City. Though SAI boasts of modern scientific facilities, the worn-out turf forced Indian chief coach Baskaran to prefer the 1997-laid turf at the KSHA stadium.