Germany women’s captain Nike Lorenz has always been a hugely influential figure on field for Die Danas, but her form at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 has been eye-catching in its quality.
The 27-year-old – who is competing in her third Olympics after Rio 2016, where she won bronze, and Tokyo 2020 – came into Paris 2024 with 51 goals in 174 international matches. However, in Paris she has already found the target five times in four women’s Pool B matches, with her latest contribution being two goals in a 4-2 victory over the ever-improving China on Friday (2nd August).
While her goals are proving vital to Germany’s Olympic campaign, the renowned defender insists that she really does not mind where the goals come from. “Yeah, I'm happy to score of course, but I honestly don't care too much about who scores as long as we're winning”, said Lorenz, who won the Indoor World Cup with Germany in 2018 in Berlin, the city of her birth. “But if I can be the one doing the job, then I'm absolutely happy about that.”
Sporting a pair of Olympic Rings earrings (“perhaps they are lucky earrings now”, she says, smiling), Lorenz was typically honest in her assessment of the match against China. “I think they were unlucky not to score first, but they didn't”, said Lorenz, whose team sealed a place in the Olympic quarter finals with today’s victory over the Asian Games gold medallists.
“We definitely know how it feels to be in the position, on top but not getting the goal. I’m just very happy that we scored our chances. That's what you need to do to win a game, and that's what we lacked in the last couple of games. So, I'm just happy that we turned that around today.”
When asked whether she agreed that the current China team are very much on the rise in the guidance of Australian hockey legend Alyson Annan, Lorenz said: “I agree 100 percent. it was so hard because they destroy our game a lot. So yeah, we knew it was going to be a very, very tough game today. I'm very happy with the results.”
Germany have been in excellent form here at Paris 2024, and now have three wins and one defeat – a narrow 2-1 loss to the Netherlands – from four matches played. Although they have already secured a place in the quarter-finals, Lorenz and her team-mates are still very much taking this competition one match at a time, determined to finish as high in Pool A as possible.
“Right now, we're just focusing on the next game, which is against Belgium”, said Lorenz, knowing that a win in Saturday’s meeting with the Red Panthers would most likely secure a top-two finish in Pool A and set up an arguably more favourable quarter-final match against one of the lower finishers in Pool B. “We’ll go into the Belgium game with the quarter-finals in our head as we know how important that match is and what a door opener it may be. So that's clearly our focus for now.”
The hockey competitions at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 take place from Saturday 27 July to Friday 9 August. Both the men’s and women’s competitions feature 12 teams, split into two pools of six ahead of quarter-finals, semi-finals and medal matches. For more information about the hockey competitions at Paris 2024, visit Olympics.Hockey.
#Hockey
#Paris2024
