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A home away from home for Paris ‘24 hopefuls
Indian athletes training in Sportcampus Saar in Germany, ahead of Tokyo Olympics, enjoy facilities similar to those in Paris. Indian food surprises paddler Sharath Kamal.
Mumbai When ace Indian paddler Sharath Kamal flew to Germany for his final pre-Olympic training camp, he was looking forward to similar playing and weather conditions as in Paris. The presence of Indian food took him completely by surprise.
That was thanks to the Indian boxing contingent carrying its personal chef, who was cooking Indian dishes in one tiny corner of the kitchen of a nine-hectare property tucked away on the outskirts of Saarbrucken on the German and French border.
Home away from home for a chunk of Paris-bound Indian athletes, Sportcampus Saar is a training hotbed nestled between tranquil greens. It is host to India’s boxing and table tennis contingents, two-time Olympic medallist shuttler PV Sindhu and, until he moved to Antalya, Turkey earlier this month, reigning Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra.
Chopra was around to have a chat with the boxers when they checked in late last month, and to give Sindhu company for her 29th birthday which she celebrated in the campus on July 5.
“We tried to make it a happy birthday for her,” Johannes Kopkow, COO and CMO of Sportcampus Saar, said.
The facility has tried to replicate a lot of the things that Paris will have in store come the Olympics in a week’s time. It has attracted around 400 athletes and their support staff across countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, Poland and Portugal to this isolated campus that has 190 beds (Chopra, who has often trained here since 2022 and is the star in any sporting group these days, has his own room, said Kopkow).
Its selling points are by nature and design. For one, Paris is less than two hours away by train — most Indian athletes at the campus will start trickling into Paris over the next few days — and the weather conditions are almost alike.
Two, everything is in one place; athletes can sleep, train, recover, eat and relax within the premises. It has a 50m swimming pool, a big hall divided into three sections for boxing, table tennis and badminton, three football fields, a track and field stadium, wrestling and weightlifting arenas, a recovery area and two gyms. There’s a food hall right in the middle of it all, and a 3x3 basketball court and two outdoor TT tables for athletes to play something else for a change.
Three, apart from the benefit of a vast volume and type of sparring partners at the disposal of boxers and paddlers, the indoor arenas are modelled after those at the Paris Olympics. For table tennis, for instance, the flooring, table and balls used are the same as at the South Paris Arena, the venue for TT events at the Games.
“That’s important,” Sharath, heading for his fifth Olympics, said. “Every table, every ball is different. And for us to get that understanding of the table and balls takes time. We are 35 players from all over among the boys. It’s a huge and significant number to have different kinds of sparring partners.”
Such attention to detail was “our goal”, said Kopkow, and work for which started more than a couple of years ago. With proximity to Paris and their infrastructure, they knew they could bring in plenty of international athletes for their pre-Games setup.
With his German coach Klaus Bartonietz aware of the centre, Chopra was using it for training anyway. At the BWF Hylo Open last year, the president of the Swiss badminton federation informed Kopkow about Sindhu hunting for a spot for her pre-Olympic training. “He asked me to get in touch with her. I did. And here she is,” Kopkow said.
The boxing contingent zeroed down on it via the German boxing association, while Sharath surveyed the place six months ago knowing that his teammates including Manav Thakkar have trained there before. “I didn’t know Sindhu, Neeraj... everyone will be here,” Sharath said.
The centre can also cater to specific individual needs . Like Sindhu using a peculiar tent-like sleeping setup that is also a hypoxic chamber or the boxing contingent bringing its own chef. “We created a special place for the Indian chef in the kitchen, and also got what he needed — like rice cooker,” Kopkow said. “We do everything that is possible so that athletes can fully concentrate (on their training) and have a good time here.”
Sindhu certainly appears to be having a good time. She has spoken about enjoying the peace and the undisturbed environment at the campus, which rests in the midst of the city forest. It’s quiet, yet bustling with hundreds of athletes applying final touches to their Olympics preparations.
“It also gives a little bit of the feeling of an Olympic Village. We have 400 athletes and staff here; everyone eats at the same food hall,” Kopkow said. “It’s a little bit of the Olympics feeling in what we have here.”
