Canada, Belarus, Ireland and Chile have reached the final four of the women’s UDG Healthcare PLC Hockey World League Round 2 tournament after winning their respective quarter-final matches at the event in Dublin.
The winners of the tournament semi-final matches will not only secure a place in the competition final but also claim a ticket to the Olympic Qualifier phase of the HWL.
Thea Culley scored twice as Canada (FIH World Ranking: 22) stormed to a 5-1 win over Austria (WR: 27) in the first quarter-final to set up a semi-final meeting against Pan American rivals and Pool B winners Chile. The in-form Chileans made it four wins from four by recording a big victory over Turkey, with Manuela Urroz and Daniela Caram claiming four goal hauls. Canada and Chile will go head-to-head on Saturday (21 March) at 1700 (local time – UTC / GMT).
The other semi-final, which takes place at 1430, will be contested between host nation Ireland (WR: 14) and Belarus (WR: 21). Goals from Nicola Evans and team captain Megan Frazer gave Pool A winners Ireland a hard-earned 2-0 win over improving Lithuania (WR: 34), while Belarus cruised to a 5-1 win over Ukraine (WR: 25) thanks largely to Svitlana Bahushevich who found the net on four occasions.
As well as the semi-finals, Saturday’s action will feature the 5-8 classification matches with Lithuania squaring up against Ukraine at 0930 before Austria face Turkey at 1200.To see all tournament fixtures and results, please click here.
In the women’s Hockey World League, a total of seven qualification places for the HWL Semi-Finals are available from the Round 2 events in Montevideo (URU), New Delhi (IND) and Dublin (IRL). The reason for seven rather nine qualifiers is because both Spain and Belgium, two nations ranked between 12-19 at the time of seeking entries, are hosting Semi-Final tournaments later this year and have therefore already qualified.
The top two finishers from Montevideo, New Delhi and Dublin are certain to qualify for the Semi-Finals, being joined by the highest ranked of the third placed finishers from those three events. Italy and Uruguay recently confirmed their places in the Semi-Finals with a top two finish at the event in Montevideo, and were joined in Round 3 by India and Poland, who reached the final of the event in New Delhi.
Azerbaijan are currently the highest ranked of the third place finishers, although they will need to wait for the completion of the HWL Round 2 event in Dublin before knowing if they have made the cut. To learn more about how the teams progress through the competition in the hope of reaching the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, click here.
You can keep track of the tournament in Dublin on the official tournament microsite.
