Women hockey team makes it to Olympics after 36 years

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 29

The Indian women’s hockey team will see action in the Olympic Games at Rio in 2016, after a 36-year gap. When the Indian women finished fifth at the Hockey World League Semifinals in Antwerp last month, they practically assured themselves of a berth in the Rio Olympics. This has been confirmed now.

The confirmation came after England beat Spain in the semifinals of the EuroHockey Championships in London. This means that only the Netherlands or England can win the Euro tournament, and thus qualify for Rio for being the European continental champions.

India finished fifth in the Antwerp tournament, from which the top three teams directly qualified for the Olympics. But since the teams that finished ahead of India at Antwerp qualified also as continental champions, India too qualified on the basis of the Antwerp result.

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) confirmed that the Indian women have qualified for Rio Games. "India qualified after England defeated Spain in the semifinals of the Unibet EuroHockey Championships in London, which ensured that the only teams — the Netherlands and England (as Great Britain) — who can now win the event have already qualified for Rio through the Hockey World League Semifinals," the FIH said in a statement.

"The winner of the EuroHockey Championships will qualify for the 2016 Olympics as European continental champions, opening up a further qualification spot which India secure as the team who ranked highest at the Hockey World League Semifinals not already qualified," the FIH statement said. The Indian team is the 10th team to qualify for the Rio Olympics. The other teams are South Korea (as Asian Games champions), Argentina (as Pan Am Games champions), and Great Britain, China, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and the US through the Hockey World League Semifinals.

When the Indian women last played at the Olympics, in Moscow 1980, they finished fourth. Women’s hockey was introduced at the Olympics for the first time that year, but the Games were marred by the US-led boycott and Zimbabwe’s women won the title.