EXCLUSIVE: 'Not at all' - FIH CEO says Hockey5s will not replace 11-a-side at the Olympics

FIH Hockey5s event concluded in Lausanne on Sunday. Like scrolling through reels on social media, 22 matches involving seven nations across the men and women sections were wrapped up in just two days. While the event kept most of the old-school purists away, FIH believes the sport earned some new fans, who parked their cars along the Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) to walk across to Place de la Navigation, a concourse turned into a Hockey5s field. That's perhaps the idea of Hockey5s. Asking just 20 minutes from fans to watch a complete game in the middle of a city, TikTok style - just watch and scroll. But the CEO of International Hockey Federation (FIH), Thierry Weil, says the bigger picture is to woo countries who don't play the sport at all -- by way of low-cost infrastructure, smaller duration of games, fewer players and minimal-to-no logistical nightmares.

FIH CEO Thierry WeilWeil spoke to TimesofIndia.com in an exclusive interview about this. Many, though, strongly contest that the FIH's push for the Hockey 5s will eventually end up replacing 11-a-side hockey at the Olympics. Is there any truth to that? Weil answers that question and many more in this chat with Timesofindia.com. Excerpts:FIH is pretty excited about the Hockey5s. What have you witnessed over the last two days to become more hopeful of its success?What we have witnessed is first of all that the players themselves have really enjoyed and they have also really taken it seriously. They have played fantastic games. This (tournament) is hosted in the center of the city of Lausanne, around the lake. We had a lot of people who had never seen hockey, who stopped for half an hour to an hour to watch the games, to celebrate, to be part of that. We have a lot of