BHUBANESWAR: As a kid, Victor Wegnez didn't like being home. It was a bit 'shit'. It was the same thing whenever he was out on the streets of Molenbeek, a Brussels neighbourhood that came into the limelight after the Paris bombings in late 2015 (western newspapers, in the aftermath of the bombings, labelled this particular locality as Europe's terror capital). On Molenbeek's streets where Wegnez grew up, he saw the violence. "I used to live in an environment that's not really nice," he says when describing Molenbeek. "Made of violence and stuff."
This part of his childhood, the 27-year-old says, is what has made him into one of the world's best first rushers, one of the most dangerous jobs in all of sport. They are the players who have to run like 100m sprinters from the goal towards the top of the D to stop a ball that's travelling at speeds of over 125 kmph. It's a one-way journey to hell because if the runner misjudges the flight of the ball by a fraction, it could lead to a fracture. At the World Cup, Wegnez showed why he's one of the best at what he does in a mad 10-minute spell of outstanding first-rushing in Belgium's first game against South Korea. With Belgium leading 1-0, the opposition's attackers found some momentum to earn five penalty corners. Wegnez chased all of it down, running into the line of the ball. He got his stick on the ball to divert it away from goal all five times. On air, commentator Dan Strange noted 'it was one of the best displays of first rushing' he had ever seen.
The 27-year-old chuckles when you ask him how he got the courage to do what he does. "I think it's a part of who I am," he says. "I used to live in an environment that's not really nice. Made of violence and stuff." At home, he didn't have the greatest relationship with his parents. "My dad used to be really aggressive," he says. "He didn't help."So, it isn't a surprise to note that he truly came alive when he began to play hockey. If he went out of line, even ever so slightly while at home, he knew it would be a problem. Hockey, though, allowed him to express his freedom to the fullest.
"Now that I am an adult, I see it like this," he says when you ask him if he saw hockey as an escape. "When I was young, being at home was ... shit because you were entering a space you didn't want to be in. When I was in hockey, I was away from my family and was really doing something I loved... seeing my friends, I could scream, run, I could hit the ball and believe... to do things I couldn't do at home. Because if I did something out of what my father wanted, it was a little bit of a problem. Hockey changed my life."
After he became a full Belgian international, he had a frank talk with his father. "I see my father once in a year or once in two years but now we are fine because I spoke to him. I tell him I don't get it, I don't understand why you were like this. And I think there is no excuse for what he did. So be it. I am not going to live in the past."
He's also thankful for the experiences he has had because 'it made me who I am'. "I am thankful for all those things because it made me who I am," he says. "If I didn't have my youth, maybe I wouldn't be talking to you. I wouldn't change my childhood."
It's why he references his rough upbringing when you ask him about where he got his courage from. "I am never complaining about the pain when I get hit by the ball," he says "It's also a job I have to do to be in the team. It's not something that everybody can do. You just need to be brave and accept that the ball is going to hit you and it's going to be painful. I am pretty proud to take all those balls because it means I am helping the team."
But, crucially, he also had the athletic ingredients one needed to have to become a good rusher. Speed, that single greatest of athletic currencies. "He's the fastest in our side over 5 metres," Shane McLeod, under whom Wegnez became a mainstay of the side, tells this daily. The Kiwi, who's a travelling consultant with the Red Lions this time, explains further. "He does a lot of video work as well. He constantly studies what the drag-flickers are doing, he's also very brave. In training, he practices his runs and finds the most efficient way to get to the top of the D." After bringing him into the senior set-up post the Rio Olympics, McLeod and Wegnez focussed on developing one of his primary skill-sets — speed over 5m — to see if they could develop it further.
"He was very fast so that put him in a category of 'if you are keen to develop this further, we are keen to develop you'. It was a combination of him wanting to be helpful and us seeing that his skill-set fitted what we needed," McLeod explains.
That skill-set has already helped Belgium numerous times in previous FIH tournaments. It has helped them become Olympic and world champions. Wegnez, who's going for the double like a number of teammates, is quietly confident. "It's (back-to-back world champions) the aim of the team," he says. "When you do it, you still need to have that little push inside you to push it to do it again. I think the most difficult thing in sport is to stay at the stop. Obviously, everybody wants to beat us now. I hope we do it but it's going to be tough."