Rio 2016 Summer Olympics Women Hockey Qualified Nations

There are 12 women teams who have qualified to take part in the 2016 Summer Olympics Hockey sport. These teams are drawn from 4 continents; Asia, Europe, Central and North America, Oceania and South America. Surprisingly, the host Brazil will not field any women Hockey team because they failed to rank higher than 40th in the FIH ranking by end of 2014 and also failed to qualify in the 2015 Pan American Games. This is one of the events the host will not be taking part, however the host men field hockey team qualified and will be competing in the hockey men’s event.

Africa failed to field a team in the hockey sport, this also the same case to the men field hockey. In the 2015 African Qualifying Tournament that was held in South Africa’s city of Randburg from the 23rd of October to the1st of November 2015, South Africa women team topped the championship but declined to take the slot and it was awarded to Spain. Team Spain had failed to qualify in the London’s August’s 2015 EuroHockey Nations Championship but had ranked 4th. Being the next best ranked team globally yet to qualify they were awarded the Africa’s slot.

Apparently, Asia and the Europe nations have taken two thirds of the 12 slots for the Rio 2016 Hockey sport women event. Asia’s China, India, Japan and South Korea all will be taking part; this is a third of the slots, while Europe’s Team GB, Team Germany, Team Spain and the Netherlands have also taken the other 4 slots. I do not want to comment and say it’s unfair because FIH; the global hockey governing body had set the qualification standards earlier and other regions failed to have more qualified nations by not meeting the basic qualification of winning their continental championships or taking the 6 position from the FIH World League Championships. This however was not the case of the of the host nation; Brazil, they had to rank at least 40th globally or rank from 6th to 1st in their continental championship, they did not meet either of the criteria.

In the remaining 4 slots, Oceania’s Team Australia and Team New Zealand have a slot each, while Central, North and South America will be represented by Team Argentina and Team USA. Argentina has qualified in the men events too together with host Brazil. Team USA men hockey team did not make it.

The 12 teams qualified in different championships. Regional or continental championship were allocated only one slot and in this case, Team Australia, Team GB, Team South Korea and Team USA qualified through 2015 Oceania Cup2015’s, EuroHockey Nations Championship, 2014’s Asian Games and 2015’s Pan American Games respectively. All the other 8 teams qualified in the two 2014 and 2015 FIH Hockey World League Semifinals first held in Spain’s city of Valencia between the 10th and 21st of June and in Antwerp in Belgium between 20th of June to the 5th of July.

What this qualifications means is that Africa women Hockey standards need to improve because none of the African nations women hockey team met FIH threshold and the winner of the continental championship South Africa did not take their slot and was awarded to Spain and Africa lost out.

The women teams are divided into pools, A and B and will commence their competition on the 7th of August with the final match slotted for the 19th of August.

All women hockey matches will take place at the Deodoro’s newly constructed Olympics Hockey Centre in Rio de Janeiro.

Teams or nations to watch in the women’s field hockey at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics Games are Netherlands, who took the gold medal in the London’s 2012 Summer Olympics. This was the second gold medal in a row, as they had won the Beijing’s 2008 games gold medal and the third one in all the summer Olympics women hockey sport; they had won the 1984, Los Angeles Summer Olympics games women hockey gold medal.

Team Australia women hockey team have won the gold medal thrice, in the 1986, 1996 and 200 Sydney Summer Olympics.

Germany is yet another hockey women team to watch, they have won the gold medal in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.

Argentina may have not won any gold medal but they have won both the silver and the bronze medal, in fact in the London Olympics they lost narrowly to Netherlands.

China too has won a silver medal in the games they hosted in 2008.

Below is a table of all the qualification information for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics women hockey event.

RIO 2016 SUMMER OLYMPICS WOMEN FIELD HOCKEY QUALIFIED NATION/TEAM
Asia
Qualified Nation/Team	Qualification Date	Year		Name of the Qualification Championship	Host City		Host Country	Remark
China	10th June to 21st June	2015		2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Valencia		Spain
India	20th June to 5 July	2015		2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Antwerp		Belgium
Japan	20th June to 5 July	2015		2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Antwerp		Belgium
South Korea	20th Sep to 2nd Oct	2014		2014 Asian Games	Incheon		South Korea
Central and North America
Qualified Nation/Team	Qualification Date	Year		Name of the Qualification Championship	Host City		Host Country	Remark
United States	13th July to 24th July	2015		2015 Pan American Games	Toronto		Canada
Europe
Qualified Nation/Team	Qualification Date		Year	Name of the Qualification Championship	Host City		Host Country	Remark
Great Britain	22nd Aug A to 30th Aug		2015	2015 EuroHockey Nations Championship	London		Great Britain
Spain	23rd Oct to1st Nov		2015	2015 African Qualifying Tournament	Randburg		South Africa	South Africa won the title but declined to take the slot for Africa Spain had the next best qualification
Netherlands	20th June to 5 July		2015	2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Antwerp		Belgium
Germany	10th June to 21st June		2015	2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Valencia		Spain
Oceania
Qualified Nation/Team	Qualification Date		Year	Name of the Qualification Championship	Host City	Host Country		Remark
Australia	21st Oct to 25th Oct		2015	2015 Oceania Cup	Stratford	New Zealand
New Zealand	20th June to 5 July		2015	2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Antwerp	Belgium
South America
Qualified Nation/Team	Qualification Date		Year	Name of the Qualification Championship	Host City	Host Country		Remark
Argentina	10th June to 21st June		2015	2014 and 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals	Valencia	Spain