Sports
Van Ass, Thornton to coach Indian hockey teams
New Delhi, Jan 30
Former Dutch national coach
Paul van Ass and Anthony Thornton of New Zealand were Friday named the
new coaches of the Indian men’s and women’s hockey teams, respectively.
The
names were finalised at a special selection committee meeting headed by
secretary sports Ajit Sharan, Hockey India (HI) president Narinder
Batra, high performance director Roelant Oltmans, Olympian Harbinder
Singh among other Sports Authority of India (SAI) officials.
The
committee considered three names -- van Ass, Hans Streeder of the
Netherlands and Alexander Grey of Australia -- for the position of men’s
coach while Thornton, Canadian Mathias Ahrens and Fabian Gregory of
South Africa were in contention for the women’s team.
As coach,
Van Ass led the Netherlands to a silver at the 2012 London Olympics
after being given the job of rebuilding the team in 2010. He also served
as the head coach of the Dutch Under-21 team.
Thornton has been
working with the New South Wales Institute of Sports in Australia for
four years and has also worked with the Australian U-21 men’s team as
their head coach.
The former New Zealand star, now 47, represented his national side in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
“The
most important criteria for selecting the two individuals was based on
whether they are capable of taking Indian hockey forward. The national
team has been performing well for the last few years and with the men’s
team already qualified for the Rio Olympics, we are keen that the
development process not just continues further but gathers pace in the
next few months,†Sharan said.
“The sports ministry has already approved the pro