In the run-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Indian men’s hockey team will undergo arduous training under the supervision of renowned adventurer Mike Horn’s base in Switzerland.
The exercise is done to strengthen the players’ mental toughness ahead of the Paris Olympics.
The training camp at Horn’s base was arranged by renowned South African mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton, who will assist the Indian men’s hockey team in Paris.
Upton, who played a role in India winning the 2011 Cricket World Cup, had also arranged a similar camp for the South African cricket team in 2012.
“We will take the Indian hockey team to Switzerland to the Swiss Alps to go to Mike Horn’s training camps. It is something we did with the South African cricket team back in 2012, we climbed down mountains, jumped off waterfalls, went down canyons, walked in mountains,” Upton, who has been on and off conducting camps with the Indian hockey team, said in his Instagram page.
“It was an amazing experience to take players out of their comfort zone. I spent a lot of time listening to Mike Horn who is probably the greatest adventurer ever to have lived and alive today. He tells incredible stories that puts into perspective what real pressure is about. He faces the pressure of death and the players get to see the pressure we experience, for example, the hockey team is gonna experience is not real pressure,” he added.
Horn, a renowned adventurer and motivational speaker, uses his experiences to motivate sportsmen and other people involved in challenging work such as deep-sea drilling.
He also conducted motivational sessions for the Indian cricket team at the request of coach Gary Kirsten in 2010-11.
Horn was also roped in by Kolkata Knight Riders in 2014 when the franchise won the Indian Premier League under Gautam Gambhir’s captaincy.