Australia’s Kookaburras 2012 London Olympics spot confirmed as Fiji withdraw from Oceania Cup
The current World Number one and the reigning World Champions Kookaburras, the Australian national hockey team, have automatically qualified for the Olympic Games to be held in London, England in July 2012 as Fiji, one of the Oceania Cup participants, has
withdrawn from the Oceania Cup, Olympic Qualifier which is scheduled to be held in Hobart, Australia form October 6 to 9.
The tournament now will be played like a best of three series between the Kookaburras and their rivals, the Black Sticks Men, only to decide the Champions of the tournament, Oceania Cup. As earlier the top two sides of the Oceania Cup qualify for the London
Olympics but this will not be the case now.
Having automatically qualified for the 2012 London Olympics Ric Charlesworth, the coach of the Kookaburras stated that although his team has qualified for the next year’s prestigious event of sports yet there is still an ample work to do as they will be
eyeing to sharpen their proficiency before going into 2012 London Olympic Games as his boys did not show a consistent performance showing during some of their previous international tournaments in this year.
“The fact that we will play New Zealand once more is good for the teams overall development. Any opportunity to play a quality team in the countdown to the Olympics must be used properly. We saw in our last tournament that we still have much to improve on
and I will be looking for significant improvement from the players at the Oceania Cup,” Ric Charlesworth, the coach of the Australian national hockey team, stated his comments about their upcoming assignment before the FIH Champions Trophy hockey tournament
to be played in New Zealand in December this year.
The Australian Hockeyroos, the national Women’s hockey team, have also booked their place in the 2012 London Olympics as the Fiji women’s national hockey team also quit from the event. Both of the Fijian hockey teams withdrew from the tournament due to some
financial concerns.
Both the Men’s and Women’s teams will be in front of the Black Sticks on Thursday, October 6 in their opening matches followed by the second match which is scheduled for Saturday, October 8 and the last on Sunday, October 9.
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