New Delhi: The Major Dhyan Chand Stadium here will be hosting the men’s and women’s qualifying tournaments for the 2012 London Olympics. Six teams will be in the fray in both the sections.
According to an International Hockey Federation (FIH) communication to Hockey India (HI) secretary-general Narinder Batra, copies of which were release to the media today, the tournament will be played here from February 18 to 26.
The teams: Men’s: India, Canada, France, Italy, Poland and the USA.
Women’s: India, Canada, Italy, Poland, South Africa and Ukraine.
The FIH had indicated earlier that the tournament would stay in New Delhi, after a period of time when it had fallen under a shadow after the FIH had expressed its displeasure about the way hockey was being run in India, with the ‘truce’ between HI and the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) being a major bone of contention.
New Delhi had already lost the Champions Trophy when the FIH decided to shift the tournament to New Zealand and even the Olympic qualifiers had faced a lot of uncertainty. However, with the latest communication, that uncertainty has been sorted out.
The Tribune