Roelant Oltmans was on Saturday named as India's new field hockey coach after fellow Dutchman Paul van Ass was removed just five months after taking charge. Oltmans, 61, currently working with Hockey India as its High Performance Director, will serve as coach of the national team until the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The new appointment was confirmed by Hockey India president Narinder Batra after his meeting with Sports Authority of India officials in New Delhi.
"Oltmans has agreed to be the coach until the Rio Olympics and we would want him to continue after that too," Batra told reporters after the meeting. Oltmans, who coached the Netherlands to the Olympic gold medal in 1996 and the World Cup title two years later, will be the seventh foreigner to coach India in the last 10 years. Speculation over van Ass' future arose last week when he failed to take charge of an ongoing national training camp and also did not submit reports on the recent World Hockey League in Antwerp, Belgium, where India finished fourth. Van Ass told Indian media last week that he had been fired soon after the league ended and revealed that Oltmans had been asked to take over. Batra played down the controversy over the sacking of van Ass and urged Indian hockey to look ahead.
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