Hockey: New ranking makes men's road to Olympics harder

By TERRY MADDAFORD

The New Zealand men's hockey team will now face three Asian opponents in their bid for a place at next year's Olympics.

The sport's governing body, FIH, has introduced a new ranking system that lowers New Zealand from ninth to 11th and puts them in a different pool at the March 2-13 Games qualifying tournament in Madrid.

The redrawn pools are:

Pool A: The Netherlands (ranked No 2 in the world), Britain (8), Spain (9), Japan (12), South Africa (13), Poland (18).

Pool B: Pakistan (5), India (6), Malaysia (10), New Zealand (11), Belgium (14), Canada (15).

Already qualified for Athens, as champions of their continents, are Germany (1), Australia (3), Korea (4), Argentina (7) and Egypt (16).

Hosts Greece will play Poland for the sixth automatic spot in the 12-team tournament. They will be joined by the top six teams from the Madrid competition.

"I can understand what the International Federation are trying to achieve," New Zealand coach Kevin Towns said. "What we are questioning, however, is the decision to make these rankings retrospective to 2000. We have been penalised for poor results in 2000 and 2001.

"Under the new rankings, India and Spain have gone ahead of us."

The New Zealand women have gone up from 11th to ninth in the new rankings.

They will be the third-ranked team in pool A at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Auckland from March 19-28.

New Zealand will be joined by Germany (ranked eighth), Ireland (14), Ukraine (15) and either Korea (5) or Britain (6).

Pool B has Spain (7), US (10), Japan (11), Russia (17) and either Korea or Britain.

The highest finisher between the Koreans and British at the Champions Trophy in Sydney next month will play in pool A.

Either four or five teams from the Auckland tournament will qualify for Athens.

In a pre-tournament clash in Auckland, Greece will play Russia. If Greece win they automatically qualify for the Olympics, leaving four qualifying spots. If they lose, five spots will be at stake at the 10-team Olympic tournament.

Already qualified are Argentina (1), the Netherlands (2), Australia (3), China (4) and South Africa (13).

The Canadians, who are not Olympic contenders, and the American women have already expressed interest in playing pre-tournament matches here.

Before that, New Zealand will play a two-test series with Argentina (en route to the Champions Trophy) in Auckland on November 22-23.

The 25-player Black Sticks squad will gather in Auckland tomorrow week. The 18 test players will be named during the training camp.

The men will play tests against Britain on November 22-23 (in Auckland), November 27 and 29 (Tauranga) and November 30 (Hamilton).