Lausanne, Switzerland: After the completion of the Oceania Cup - which saw New Zealand’s Women and Australia’s Men be crowned Oceanian Champions and therefore qualify directly for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - and the publication of the latest Men’s and Women’s FIH World Rankings today, the pots of the draw to determine the matches of the upcoming FIH Hockey Olympic qualifiers are now confirmed as follows:
Men
Pot 1 (Host teams):
(1) The Netherlands
(2) India
(3) Germany
Pot 2 (Host teams):
(4) Great Britain
(5) Spain
(6) New Zealand
(7) Canada
Pot 3 (Away teams):
(8) Malaysia
(9) France
(10) Ireland
(11) Korea
Pot 4 (Away teams):
(12) Pakistan
(13) Austria
(14) Russia*
*Egypt decided to withdraw from the qualifiers and were therefore replaced by the next best-ranked team, Russia
Women
Pot 1 (Host teams):
(1) Australia
(2) Germany
(3) Great Britain
Pot 2 (Host teams):
(4) Spain
(5) Ireland
(6) India
(7) China
Pot 3 (Away teams):
(8) Korea
(9) Belgium
(10) USA
(11) Canada
Pot 4 (Away teams):
(12) Italy
(13) Chile
(14) Russia
The draw will be held tomorrow (9 September) at 1pm CEST at the headquarters of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) in Lausanne, Switzerland. It will be conducted by FIH CEO Thierry Weil and streamed live on the FIH Facebook page.
The draw will be done as follows:
- The teams ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd (pot 1) will be drawn at random to play at home against one of the teams ranked 12th, 13th or 14th (pot 4). For example, the team ranked 1st will play at home one of the teams ranked 12th, 13th or 14th, as determined by the draw
- The teams ranked 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th (pot 2) will be drawn at random to play at home against one of the teams ranked 8th, 9th, 10th or 11th (pot 3)
The FIH Hockey Olympic qualifiers are scheduled for 25-27 October and 1-3 November 2019. The exact match schedule and venues will be confirmed after the draw.
The 2020 Olympic hockey tournaments will be staged in Japan’s capital city from 25 July to 7 August next year and involve 12 Men’s and 12 Women’s teams.
The following teams have already qualified for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 as winners of their respective Continental Championship:
Men
Japan (won their Continental Championship and were already qualified as hosts)
Argentina
South Africa
Belgium
Australia
Women
Japan (won their Continental Championship and were already qualified as hosts)
Argentina
South Africa
The Netherlands
New Zealand
The final participation in the Olympic Games for any team must be approved and confirmed beforehand by their respective National Olympic Committee.
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