Fitness is prime focus of Indian women's hockey team currently: Salima

Noida, May 20 (PTI) Indian women's hockey team captain Salima Tete on Tuesday said fitness is the side's "prime focus" currently as it's the key in their quest to become a force to reckon with globally.

Harendra Singh, who took over as head coach of the team in April 2024, has always emphasised on the importance of fitness, strength, and speed, and Salima concurred.

"Fitness is an area which (Harendra) sir always emphasised on after taking charge of the team. If you are an athlete and have fitness you can achieve everything in life. Our main focus right now is on fitness, if you have fitness you can beat any team in this world," Salima said.

She was speaking after a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Hockey India and Amiity University Online here.

"I have speed but what I have observed is that players like Sunelita Toppo, Navneet Kaur, Laremsiami, Sharmila and all others who didn't have speed, are now very quick on the pitch.

"Our main focus is on fitness now. After every break when we rejoin the camp we have to go through yo-yo test." Asked about their average yo-yo test score, Salima said it is 19.4.

The Indian women recently toured Australia for a three-match exposure series which they lost 1-2 against the world no.5 side.

But Salima preferred to look at the positives from the tour.

"Have learnt a lot from the Australia tour. Australia is a very good team but we played well against them. The learnings from Australia tour is that whatever mistakes we did, we will rectify them in European FIH Pro League," she said.

"We lacked in finishing and Harendra sir is working a lot in that area.

"What we learnt is not to give up ever, which was visible in our 1-0 win against Australia in the last match." PTI SSC SSC AH AH