22.12.2013, 01:14
Poland prepare to hit form at right time

NEWS REPORT: Injury worries get smaller while the national team starts getting in shape for the EHF EURO 2014 in Denmark

Poland prepare to hit form at right time

The Polish men's national team’s preparations for the EHF EURO 2014 have already started. The first day of the team’s training camp took place on Tuesday in Pruszkow, near Warsaw.

Three hard training sessions every day including cross fit, running, swimming and physical capacity exercises are part of Michael Biegler’s plan to have an advantage over Poland’s rivals in Group C (Serbia, Russia and France).

Most of the players are in a very good condition, but some of them such as Kamil Syprzak (Wisła Plock), Bartosz Jurecki (SC Magdeburg) Michał Jurecki (Vive Targi Kielce) and Mariusz Jurkiewicz (Wisła Plock) are currently suffering from injuries.

"Kamil Syprzak is taking part in individual training such as cross stability and stability because of his knee injury.

"However, I am of the opinion he will be able to play for 100 per cent in the first game with Serbia," said Professor Klaus Baum, who next to doctor Rafal Markowski, provides the team with his professional advice.

Mariusz Jurkiewicz as well as Michał and Bartosz Jurecki are also getting better every day, providing hope that all the players are going to be in a good shape during the tournament in Denmark.

"For the moment we can state that none of our players are to be excluded because of injury during EURO 2014. Everything is going very well with our training plan and every player will recover on time," assured the team’s doctor Markowski.

Mental condition of the team is also to be very crucial when it comes to beating tough competitors such as Serbia, France and Russia.

None of these teams are easy to defeat for Poland. However, according to Karol Bielecki, one of the most experienced Polish players, very important is to make the team play all together.

"We must first create a collective unit, because only as a team can we think about winning.

"It may not be so easy, because we have many young players who recently joined the national team and have only had a number of appearances in the team, but this is sport and we need to simply go out and play our best handball," concluded Bielecki.

This opinion is shared by goalkeeper Slawomir Szmal.

"Group C is certainly not so easy for us. I would also like to meet with the Serbians in the third match rather in the first one.

"The Balkan teams, in my experience, have better performance at the beginning of tournaments and the following games are usually worse. We just need to prepare for this game, be at the top of our skills and hit form at the right time.

"We have already started our training camp, giving us more time to prepare," concluded Polish team leader Szmal.

The training camp will continue until 22 December and then resume after a break for Christmas right up until the championship from 12 to 26 January in Denmark.

TEXT: Katarzyna Pankowska / cor / ts