New Delhi: Luck has smiled on India’s women hockey team. It has qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games after 36 years.
The team qualified for the big games not because it has played exceptionally well this year. It got the entry because England made it to the final of the EuroHockey Championship now underway in London.
England’s semi-final victory over Spain, coming after the Netherlands’ win over Germany in the other semi-final in the European Championships freed one quota place as both the finalists have already qualified for the Olympic Games.
India took the quota place on the basis of its fifth-place finish in the women’s Hockey World League Semifinals in Antwerp, Belgium in July.
International Hockey Federation (FIH) confirmed that Indian women’s team has qualified for the Rio Games.
“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 Semi-Finals not already qualified,” the FIH said in a statement.
Indian women’s team now joins nine other teams, who have already qualified for 2016 Rio Games — Korea as Asian Games champions, Argentina as Pan Am Games champions and Great Britain, China, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and the USA through the Hockey World League Semi-Finals.
Indian women’s hockey team last featured in an Olympics in the 1980 Moscow Games, where they finished at a respectable fourth position.
Hockey India applauded the historic achievement of the women’s hockey team.
“It is a proud moment for Hockey India and the whole country. We have been waiting for this for the last 36 years and this achievement is the sweetest and the most memorable among all our previous feats in recent times,” HI President Narinder Batra said in a release.
Hockey India Secretary General Mohd Mushtaque Ahmad said: “The Olympics qualification is indeed a great achievement for the Indian Women Team and the Indian hockey fraternity. The players and the Coaching Staff have done a commendable job and they are still training hard for the 2016 Olympic Games. Hockey India is doing its part and fulfilling all the requirements of the team.
India are the 10th team to qualify for Rio Olympics. The last two participating teams will be confirmed in the 2015 Africa Cup for Nations in Egypt and 2015 Oceania Cup in New Zealand in November.
The Indian women’s team will commence its outing from August 7 in the Rio Olympics.