For a country, which has won 11 Olympic medals in hockey, including eight gold, the wait for the 12th seems to be never-ending.

The last time India won an Olympic gold in hockey was way back in 1980 and since then it's been downhill. But this time, there is expectation of ending the medal drought and according to India's hockey coach Graham Reid, this team has enough talent to stand on the podium in Tokyo.

"What we've been talking to the players a lot about is that if you look at the 12 teams that are going to the Olympics, in the last two years we've played and beaten all of them except Canada because we haven't had a chance to play them.

"I think that's a really important point to note. If we play well, if we do our things then we are definitely aiming to jump onto that podium," the Australian said from Bangalore during a virtual news conference.

"You have to take one game at a time when we're trying to get through to the quarter finals...To be in that final game at the end of the tournament is what everyone's trying to do. That's no different for us," Reid said.

Fourth-ranked India will begin their Olympic campaign against New Zealand on July 24. India are in Pool A along with Olympic champions Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and hosts Japan.

India reached the last-eight stage of the 2018 World Cup in Bhubaneswar and performed well in the FIH Hockey Pro League earlier this year, beating Argentina before a second wave of the pandemic disrupted their schedule.

Reid said Manpreet Singh & Co. showed amazing mental toughness during the pandemic and that could be a game-changer in Tokyo.

"I think Indians don't understand how mentally resilient they are, how good they can be. So I think that part of it is really important.

"And don't underestimate the effect that will have when the chips are down in Tokyo. I think I take a lot of solace from that. As a coach, you always want to do more but then I've also had confidence in what we have been doing over this period. So that's the mentality we have to go into Tokyo with."

The restrictions imposed on travellers from the country following the second wave meant that the Indian team was stuck at the Sports Authority of India's Bangalore Centre.

While there, the 57-year-old tactician has prepared 10-minute videos of each of his players' life stories so as to "understand more about their stories."

Captain Manpreet, who will be playing his third Olympic Games said: "Our performance in the last few years has been good. At the beginning of 2020 we were playing well, we beat good teams. Unfortunately, the Olympics got postponed by a year due to the pandemic, but we decided to take it positively. We worked on our game and kept on improving."