Field Hockey is a part of Rio Summer Olympics games and both men and women teams will feature in this 31st edition of the summer games. Hockey has been part of the Summer Olympic Games since the 1908 London Olympics, though it failed to feature in the 1912, 1920 and 1924 editions. Field Hockey is scheduled to take place from the 6th of August to the 19th of August, with men teams finishing the competitions a day earlier compared to the women event; however, the competition and the match format are similar for both men and women. It will be played at the Olympic Hockey Center; this is one of the newly constructed venues, located in the Deodoro Venue Cluster, North West of Rio. Deodoro is one of the 4 Barra that will host the Olympics; the other three venue clusters in Rio are Maracana, Barra de Tijuca and Copacabana.
Hockey in the Summer Olympics is governed by International Hockey Federation (FIH). The men matches will kick off on the morning of the 6th of August and end at 7.30 PM on the 18th, while the women matches will kick off on the evening of the 6th and end at 7.30 PM on the 19th of August. A total of 84 matches will be played; 42 for men and another 42 for the women hockey event. Read more on the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics Women Hockey Schedule
Nations Qualification for the 2016 Summer Olympics field hockey
Summer Olympics host; Brazil qualified for the men competitions only. Each continent had several slot in the Summer Olympics field hockey sport and were filled by the winning team of its continental championship as well as other FIH approved competitions. Brazil, despite being the host had to meet certain criteria which had been set by the Hockey Governing Body; FIH.
The qualification criteria for the Brazil hockey teams were that they must at least be in position 30 for the men by end of 2014 while the women team must be at 40th position. In the continental championship, Brazil men participated in the 2015 Pan American games where they needed to finish at least at position 6th, while the women needed to attain at least position 7th in the same games. In this regard, Brazil men Hockey team qualified but the women did not.
South America is represented by the most successful women hockey team in the continent; Argentina.
It’s unfortunate that no African team, either men or women will be present to compete in the hockey sport. The winner of the continental championships; South Africa do not use regional championship to qualify for Olympics Games and the slots for men went to New Zealand while that of women went to Spain.
Read about Rio 2016 Summer Olympics Men Hockey Qualified Teams and Rio 2016 Summer Olympics Women Hockey Qualified Teams
The sport of Hockey is governed by the International Hockey Federation (FIH), they regulate, set rules and standards for the sport.
Summer Olympics Field Hockey Match Format
In the Olympics, two teams made of 11 players, using a special designed stick push a ball, which is about 7cm in diameter to their opponents’ goal. Just like football, the side that scores more goals is the winner. In hockey, skills, tactics, creativity are required. When teams draw just like soccer there is penalty shoot-out. This eleven side team has a goal keeper; the hockey team also has a formation similar to football and each team has a captain.
The Rio Summer Olympics has several changes that have been put in place by the FIH. Some of these changes include reduction of the time a match takes, which initially were two halves of 35 minutes each, in the Rio Hockey games, there will be 4 quarters of 15 minutes each. This makes the hockey match shorter by 10 minutes, the Federation said that this would help in improving the flow of the matches as well as it intensity. Other changes include a 40 seconds time out after penalty corner as well as after a goal scoring to remove time wastage of hockey matches.
In Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, twelve men and twelve women teams will compete. First the teams are divided into two pools and they play Round-Robin format among each other pool members. The 4 top teams in each pool will advance to the quarter finals with only 4 nations making it to the Semifinals. Each of the 4 teams that make it to the semifinals will have an opportunity to participate in either the gold match or the bronze match.
The winners at the 2 semifinals matches scheduled for the 18th of August for the men teams and 19th of August for the women team will be among the nations that will play the medal matches. For the semifinals losers, they will play the bronze match, while gold match will be for the semis winners. The winner of the bronze match will became the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics bronze medalist, loser of the gold medal match will be the silver medalist while the overall winner will be the gold medalists.
All the nations participating, whether they advance or not will play to get their rankings.
The 2016 Summer Olympics field hockey will have three stages. These stages are the preliminary, which is the first stage where the Round Robin format will be used to determine who proceeds to the next stage. The second stage is knockout divided into Quarter and Semi Finals and the final stage of the hockey at the Olympics will the medal 2 matches; one for bronze medal and the other for gold medal.
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