Men's Hockey

Form

The Men lost to Malaysia in the Bronze Medal match at the Commonwealth Games and finished third in the World Cup Qualifying Competition, before climbing to fifth in the recent World Cup. They will be looking to finish in the top three at the European Championships in Manchester (18-25 August 2007) to secure qualification. England are currently ranked eleventh in the World, but fourth in Europe. Given results from 2006, where they have managed to beat teams ranked above them, they should qualify, but there is still a big question mark over whether they can perform in the big tournaments.

Qualification (12 team tournament)

China (Host)
Korea (Asian Games Champion, Doha, Qatar, 1-15 December 2006)
Pakistan (Asian Games bronze medalist, extra quota place)

Champion of the 15th Pan American Games (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 13-29 July 2007)
Champion of the African Olympic Qualification Tournament (Nairobi, Kenya, 14-22 July 2007)
Champion of the 11th Men’s EuroHockey Nations Championship (Manchester, England, 18-25 August 2007)
Champion of the 5th Oceania Cup (Australia, 10-17 September 2007)

Two extra quotas places for Europe:
Silver medalist of the 11th Men’s EuroHockey Nations Championship
Bronze medalist 11th Men’s EuroHockey Nations Championship

The last three spots for the 2008 Olympic Games women’s hockey competition will be determined during three Olympic Qualification tournaments in March or April 2008. These tournaments will take place in Japan, Chile and New Zealand.

What to watch

As previously mentioned, Hockey is the sport that we play so will feature as one of our Olympic Experience options. In Athens, we saw the Australia beat Netherlands in the Men's Finals, and saw GB lose to Spainin a preliminary round game.

In Beijing, the hockey is at the main Olympic Complex, but the Men's Final is on the same day as the final day of the Athletics, a session we would also not wish to miss. So we'll be carefully looking at the schedule to see if we can attend both events. Our aim will be to attend the finals day in Beijing (23rd August) and see Great Britain play in a preliminary game during the first week.