Worldhockey

September 20, 2007

Allocation of Teams for Olympic Qualification Tournaments

FIH today released the details of the Olympic qualifying tournaments to be played early 2008.

Despite some surprising results in the Oceania Cup, which was the last Continental tournament for direct Olympic qualification, hockey giant Australia’s women’s team will join their men’s team in Beijing next year in a quest for gold medals.

After the Oceania Cup, nine of the 12 Olympic participants for both the men’s and the women’s hockey tournament are now finalized:

Men: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Korea, Netherlands, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain.

Women: Argentina, Australia, China, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa.

Furthermore, the FIH is pleased to release the details of the Olympic qualifying tournaments to be played early 2008.

Men:

  • North Shore City, Auckland, New Zealand – 02/10 February 2008
    Argentina, Cuba, France, Ireland, New Zealand and Trinidad & Tobago

  • Santiago, Chile – 01/09 March 2008
    Austria, Bangladesh, Chile, Egypt, Great Britain and India

  • Kakamigahara, Japan – 05/13 April 2008
    Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Switzerland

    The reserve nations for the tournaments (in order) are:
    1) Netherlands Antilles
    2) USA
    3) Mexico

    Women:

  • Baku, Azerbaijan – 12/20 April 2008
    Azerbaijan, Belarus, Chile, Kenya, Spain and Ukraine

  • Kazan, Russia – 19/27 April 2008
    Belgium, Chinese Taipei, India, Netherlands Antilles, Russia and USA

  • Victoria, Canada – 26 April/04 May 2008
    Canada, Cuba, Ireland, Italy, Korea and Malaysia

    The reserve nations for these tournaments (in order) are:
    1) France
    2) Uruguay
    3) Barbados

    The FIH will now request the National Associations and National Olympic Committees of all teams qualified for both the Olympic Games and the WorldHockey Olympic Qualifiers to confirm their participation. In the event that a nation does not accept the invitation to participate in a qualifier, it will be replaced directly by the reserve nations in order of world ranking.

    Source: WorldHockey.org
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