Indian Hockey News: Van Ass Named Men's Coach, Thornton to Lead Women's Team

Former Dutch national coach Paul van Ass and Anthony Thornton of New Zealand were named the new coaches of the Indian men's and women's hockey teams respectively.

The names were finalised at a special selection committee meeting headed by secretary sports Ajit Sharan, Hockey India (HI) president Narinder Batra, high performance director Roelant Oltmans, Olympian Harbinder Singh among other Sports Authority of India (SAI) officials.

The committee considered three names -- van Ass, Hans Streeder of the Netherlands and Alexander Grey of Australia -- for the position of men's coach while Thornton, Canadian Mathias Ahrens and Fabian Gregory of South Africa were in contention for the women's team.

As coach, Van Ass led the Netherlands to a silver at the 2012 London Olympics after being given the job of rebuilding the team in 2010. He also served as the head coach of the Dutch Under-21 team.

Thornton has been working with the New South Wales Institute of Sports in Australia for four years and has also worked with the Australian U-21 men's team as their head coach.

The former New Zealand star, now 47, represented his national side in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

"The most important criteria for selecting the two individuals was based on whether they are capable of taking Indian hockey forward," Sharan said.

"The national team has been performing well for the last few years and with the men's team already qualified for the Rio Olympics, we are keen that the development process not just continues further but gathers pace in the next few months.

"The sports ministry has already approved the proposal to appoint the two coaches and the paperwork is being processed with both of them."