FIH announces Olympic Qualification Tournaments

Following its Executive Board meeting this weekend, the FIH today announced the 18 men’s and 18 women’s teams that have been invited to participate in the Olympic Qualification Tournaments. In total, there will be three men’s qualification tournaments and three women’s events between February and May of next year to determine the final teams that will appear at the 2012 London Olympics.

As part of the announcement, the FIH also finalized the host nations and dates of the six Qualification tournaments.

The first qualification tournaments will be held in New Delhi, India from February 15-26 and will be a joint tournament with six men’s and six women’s teams taking part. 

The double tournament in India will be followed by a men’s qualification tournament in Dublin, Ireland from March 10-18. Beerschot, Belgium will host the solo women’s event from March 17-25.

The final two Olympic berths will be determined on May 6 in Japan when both the men and women take part in a qualification tournament in Kakamigahara starting on April 25.

The six winners of the Olympic Qualification Tournaments will join the nine men’s teams and nine women’s teams that have been invited to London.

On the men’s side, the teams that have been invited to participate in the 2012 Games are (listed alphabetically): Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa.

The women’s teams that are already qualified for London are: Argentina, Australia, China, Germany, Great Britain, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States. Worth noting is that Argentina replaced South Africa after the South Africans opted to go through the qualification tournament process. Argentina took the place as the highest-ranked team.

Below are all teams and groups for the six qualification tournaments (please note that the teams in these pools are subject to change based on the National Olympic Committees accepting the invitation to take part in the qualification tournament).