WAGGA hockey ace Dylan Martin is hopeful the postponement of the Tokyo Games until 2021 will open the door to try and realise his Olympic dream earlier than planned.
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The 22-year-old had targeted breaking into the senior Kookaburras squad after the Olympics, where players are generally given a chance after senior players retire, or selectors want to bring in youth.
But after training with the Australian squad at Perth at the start of the year and also playing for Australia A against Belgium in January, Martin now has a chance to press for his ticket to Japan.
"It's better for me to try and get picked a year later than it would have been for me at the end of last year," he said.
"Who knows, they could take the exact same squad (they picked), which would make sense given it's only been postponed a year.
"But the other side of that is it could be an opportunity for someone (to push their way in). It's good for someone like me because I can strive for it and see what happens.
"I think there is the opportunity but we'll see how it goes.
"My goal was to break into the squad post-Olympics. I was a bit annoyed because I thought it could be another year waiting, but someone pointed out to me it could be an opportunity as well."
Martin was set to head to Hockey Australia's Perth base again for another training block with the senior squad two weeks after the coronavirus pandemic shut down all sport.
"I was there for a week, just games and a block of training which was pretty good and I was excited to be going again before it got cancelled," he said.
"There's a camp toward the end of the year that I might be invited to where they re-pick the Olympic train-on squad.
"With no club season or Hockey One they'll extend an invite to a few others to trial, and they'll pick the Olympic squad from that basically.
"When I went to Perth I got a good idea of where I'm at and what I need to work on, just the finer things that make the difference between being just out of it (squad) and just in.
"Everyone in that squad are good hockey players, just some mentality aspects on how I want to play is what I took out of it."
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