2 Indian hockey umpires training hard for Tokyo Olympics

Two Indian hockey umpires who will officiate at the upcoming Olympic Games are getting ready for the assignment by carrying out varied fitness training, including the yo-yo test.

Raghuprasad RV and Javed Shaikh are among a panel of 14 umpires who have been picked to officiate at the Olympics, scheduled to be staged from July 23 to August 8.

"I am currently doing my fitness training at home in Bengaluru. I attend online fitness classes every morning. I basically carry out strength and conditioning exercises, which strengthens my mobility and agility skills," said Raghuprasad, who has umpired at Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Cups.

"We are doing briefing sessions with the FIH for the Tokyo Olympics as well. We are shown clips from previous matches, and we discuss an umpire's decision-making for certain scenarios such as penalty corners, video umpiring and so on," he said.

Shaikh, who has also officiated at the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, and the World Cup, said the fitness schedule includes yo-yo tests.

"We have been giving FIH fitness tests every two-three months in the last one and a half years. Fitness tests include a yo-yo test and repeated sprint ability (RS) test. We have to record our tests on video and send it to the FIH umpires managers, who grade us according to our performance," he said. - IANS