FIH 2012 Congress in Malaysia

2012 Congress:
It was announced that Malaysia will host the 2012 FIH Congress in Kuala Lumpur. The Congress dates are from October 31 to November 4, 2012. It is the first time that Asia has hosted a Congress since 1975.

Champions Trophy & Champions Challenge Qualification System:The qualification criteria for the 2012 Champions Trophy and Champions Challenges were announced.

For the Champions Trophy the following teams will be qualified to participate:

The host
Teams placed 1st – 5th at the 2011 FIH Champions Trophy
The winners of the 2011 FIH Champions Challenge 1
One or two places to be nominated by the FIH Executive Board. The criteria used for the basis of the Executive Board decision are; commercial advantage to sport, world rankings and development of the game.

Qualification criteria for the Champions Challenge 1 and 2 can be found on the FIH website in the Event Resources section under the Sport section.

FIH World League:

The new FIH World League will be launched in 2012. To date 62 men’s teams have entered and 51 women’s. As a result of these numbers, it is likely that there will be nine men’s Round 1 tournaments and eight women’s. The FIH Competitions Committee has proposed that the Round 1 World League tournaments should be played after the Olympics in local venues to reduce travel for teams. Round 2 will follow in early 2013. In August / September 2013 Round 3 will be held and the first World League will conclude in November / December 2013 with Round 4.

Project Brazil

The FIH is working closely with the Brazil Hockey Confederation to develop an action plan to strengthen hockey in the nation in the build up to the Olympic Games in 2016. Steps taken to date include the hiring of a High Performance Director, which is in the final stages; securing equipment support; participation in the World League and hosting the Pan American Challenge at the end of July.

Complementary Game:

The FIH is currently brainstorming with various stakeholders to develop a complementary game in time for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. Several other sports have used the YOG to roll out complementary game formats and FIH is hoping to do the same. A proposal has been put forward to the IOC for approval at the IOC Executive Board next week in Durban.

Dutch ladies win shoot-out title

The Netherlands produced one of the most memorable fight-backs in memory to win the Rabo FIH Champions Trophy by defeating world Champions Argentina in a dramatic penalty shoot-out.

Maartje Paumen scored a hat-trick to help her team recover from a 3-0 deficit to tie the match, before two goal-less periods of extra time lead to the first penalty shoot-out in Champions Trophy history. Carla Rebecchi, Luciana Aymar and Daniela Sruoga were all denied by Dutch shot-stopper Joyce Sombroek, which proved to be enough to give The Netherlands their first Champions Trophy since 2007, denying Argentina a fourth title in a row.

It was a brilliant day for The Netherlands, who also collected three of the six additional prizes in the closing ceremony. Team captain Maartje Paumen collected the Rabo Cup for the Best Player of the Tournament as well as the Shell Top Scorer awards, while Willemijn Bos was named as the Volvo Most Promising Player of the tournament.

Argentina’s Belen Succi was given the Heineken Cup for Best Goalkeeper, while Zhao Yudiao was given the Adidas Goal of the Tournament Award. The England team was named as the winners of the BDO Trophy for Fair Play.

Delighted Netherland coach Max Caldas said in the post match Press Conference: “They scored three goals with their first three chances, but the girls stayed cool. The 3-1 goal turned the game around for us, it was the difference … I think the public was the winner in this match they got to see a fantastic game. Luckily we won.”

When we went down 3-1 we also went down mentally”, said Argentina’s world cup winning coach Carlos Retegui. “That will happen, especially since we had a very young team here in Holland.”

Argentina captain Luciana Aymar was obviously disappointed with the outcome. “We had a good start in the first half, but when they put in the 3-1 goal it was hard for us. In the second half they played well, ran us hard and

we got tired.”