Olympic Hockey Schedule Released

Published On: 28 April 2016

Australia’s men’s and women’s hockey teams now know the path they must navigate to achieve Olympic glory after the fixtures for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games were released to coincide with the official 100 days to go celebrations.

Australia’s men, the world champions, face a tricky mid-tournament double header against fellow medal hopefuls Belgium and Great Britain. They begin their campaign on the opening day with an all-Oceania clash against New Zealand, whose qualification for Rio was confirmed when South Africa’s Olympic Committee declined to enter its team.

Spain are Australia’s day two opponents in the first of four late evening matches in Rio, which will be beamed back into Australia at 9:30am. Hosts Brazil, the lowest ranked of the competing nations, round off the Aussie men’s campaign before the knock-out quarter finals.

Australia’s women will face one of their main opponents for the medals, London 2012 bronze medallists Great Britain on the opening day. The pair met recently in a six game series in Western Australia, where the Aussie women came out on top 2-1 with three games drawn.

Up-and-coming USA will provide Australia with their second opponent two days later before a mid-tournament double header against India and then London silver medallists Argentina, which will go a long way to establishing the order of the pool as teams jostle for quarter-final places.

The Aussie women round off their pool B games against Japan, who performed well at the recent Hawke’s Bay Cup in New Zealand, holding the Hockeyroos to a draw.

Men’s Pools (world ranking in brackets)

  • Pool A: Australia (1), Great Britain (4), Belgium (5), New Zealand (8), Spain (11), Brazil (32)
  • Pool B: Netherlands (2), Germany (3), Argentina (6), India (7), Ireland (12), Canada (14)

Women’s Pools (world ranking in brackets)

  • Pool A: Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), China (5), Germany (8), Korea (9), Spain (14)
  • Pool B: Argentina (2), Australia (3), Great Britain (6), USA (7), Japan (10), India (13)