Happy to be back on the field: Indian Junior Women's striker Mumtaz Khan
Oct 23, 2020
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], October 23 : Indian hockey player Mumtaz Khan says he is excited to be back on the field again at the ongoing national camp after nearly six months amid the coronavirus crisis.
The Core Probable Group arrived in SAI, Bengaluru on October 5 and underwent a two-week mandatory quarantine period before commencing activities this week.
"It was a new and challenging experience to be in quarantine for two weeks. It reminded me of my injury days when I had to limit my movement and was advised rest. I am happy and kind of relieved that we are finally back on the field," said Mumtaz in a Hockey India release.
The youngster who also has the Bronze medal from the U-18 Asia Cup in 2016, Silver from the Six-Nation Invitational Tournament from 2018 and the Gold medal from the Cantor Fitzgerald U-21 Four-Nation tournament last year feels the regime the players were asked to follow when they were on a break helped them maintain their fitness.
"When players come into Hockey India's National Program, a lot of awareness is created about fitness and diet. We are always told what to do when we are on a break, how to take care of ourselves, our weight etc. when there is no Camp," said Mumtaz
"We are usually given a particular regime to follow and when we were on a break, we were doing basic workouts at home during the lockdowns and once lockdowns ended, we would do basic running etc to work on our aerobic fitness," she added.
The Junior Women's Core Probable's Group will be working on hitting their old form and prepare for the Junior Asia Cup which will be a qualifying event for the FIH Junior Women's World Cup.
"I feel we were in very good rhythm before the pandemic began. We had won important matches against good teams. Now we need to work on getting back to that same rhythm," Mumtaz said.
