Togetherness, Team-First Mentality Helped India Win Tokyo 2020 Hockey Bronze: Reid
Australian chief coach Graham Reid said India's mental strength was clearly evident in the Tokyo Olympics men's hockey bronze medal match against Germany at the Oi Hockey Stadium on Thursday. India carved out a come-from-behind 5-4 win to finish on the Olympics podium after 41 years. India last won an Olympic medal (a gold) at Moscow 1980. Reid said the bio-bubble atmosphere helped Indian players bond well as a team and they demonstrated their stomach for a fight in all the matches. India had lost to Belgium in the semis. The Belgians defeated Australia for the gold medal. (Video courtesy: Hockey India; Image: Agencies)
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Transcript
00:00 Congratulations, coach, for the historic win. Losing the semi-final and then having to compete in a must-win bronze medal match could be a mental challenge for a lot of players.
00:23 What was the conversation that happened in the lead-up to the bronze medal match after losing to Belgium?
00:28 Yeah, I think in the very first huddle, I talked about team first mentality and the team first mentality really is about not allowing yourself to feel sorry for yourself.
00:47 I'm trying to find the words to say it, but basically what it means is that we're all disappointed that we missed out on gold and silver, but in reality, the best thing for the team is to put that behind you and put that behind us and focus on that bronze medal game.
01:07 The players really did a fantastic job in trying to let go of that as quick as we can. I think we gave them that first night to, you know, whatever the word is.
01:21 Talk to each other.
01:23 Yeah.
01:24 Stick together.
01:25 Yeah, and that was the other focus was coming together. You know, it's been the focus of this whole Olympics is that we have to be able to do this together. We learned a lot from studying the teams of the past from India.
01:39 And I think the concept of staying together in such a large village has been a difficult task, but something that we needed to do. So it was the team first mentality, but also that togetherness, which hopefully made a bit of a difference.
01:55 One of the things we talk about a lot is zooming out. And we did it in this morning's meeting where we zoomed out and I showed them a picture of the bronze medal and we got up on the seat and we said, right, picture yourselves, you know, putting this medal around your neck tonight and allowed us to think about it and to put yourself in that position.
02:19 And then we zoom back in and what did you have to do to get there? And that's when we zoom back in and talk about the tasks that we need to do today. What do we have to do to win? What do we have to do to achieve it? And I think when you actually do it, it's a very special feeling.
02:38 I think their ability to execute under pressure is what makes a really good team. And you just keep adding to that and adding to that. And I think, you know, we haven't seen the best of this group yet. I'm convinced that we have a lot to go and we'll continue to do that over the next little while.
03:00 The last 15 months have been a unique experience for everyone involved and that the mental resilience of this team will have been increased and determined by these last 15 months.
03:16 And don't underestimate the value of us being together during this last period under duress, under stress, going through issues which none of us had ever been prepared for.
03:32 And so when you add those into that equation, I'm sure a lot of that came out in the third quarter and the second quarter today. You really don't know until you put yourselves under that pressure. And so, you know, if you were looking at today's performance based on what you're asking, the mental resilience was there to be seen.
03:52 And, you know, let's say eight and a half, nine out of 10 for that performance today. And that's what won us the medal.
04:00 And my first question is that you've been in five Olympics. How was this Olympic different from the others?
04:06 Well, it's the first one where we were able to control our environment a little bit more, I think, as well.
04:15 You know, one of the things that we talked about beforehand was making sure that the bubble that you are in within an Olympic Games is controllable.
04:23 And that's very, very difficult to do. Normally, you have lots of things from the outside, including the ability to go outside the village and see other events.
04:31 We had none of that during this. And so it maybe was a little easier for us as staff, but also as a group to maintain that togetherness.
04:42 And so I think that that might have also played a factor. The fact that we had talked about it, the fact that we had learnt from other teams from previous Olympics.
04:53 I think I'm so glad we did that process of reading about the previous Olympics, because all those little things, you're never quite sure what makes the difference.
05:07 [Music]