Tokyo Olympic 2020 - Hockey

[sameerph]

Could not see the matches today. But great to see both our teams qualify although women almost made a mess. Glad that they came thru against a tough US team eventually. They can probably aim at a top 8 fiinish now which will be a great improvement for them .

Men did fine today. That is why said we should not base our opinion based on just 1 match. There could be nerves or simply a bad day. Medal is still a long shot but this team may be capable of getting close to is what I fell somehow.

[rajitghosh]

My question on the overall list remains and I feel we should revive the thread pre-mortem of Tokyo Olympics disaster. I somehow see it coming especially with a medal in badminton looking increasingly difficult

[srini]

I am undecided on whom to root for between Britain and Malaysia. Malaysia are a bogey team but Britain has the prowess to beat us in the tournament.

My choice is clear when it comes to choosing between an Asain nation and the piddly island. Go Malaysia gooo !

[jayakris]

In the final analysis, I suppose we do not need to be overly concerned about the two teams. I think 6-5 by the women's team against a fairly decent USA team and 11-3 by the men against really lowly Russians are nothing too much to be worried about. The women should not have had a whole half of poor play against USA today and shouldn't have invited pressure on themselves, but they probably did a better job than expected on the first day to counter it, and they really showed their mettle by defending all the way in the second half today. I am upbeat for now.

Okay, I will go ahead and stick with my forgotten prediction of a medal for our men. Of course, for that we have to make the quarterfinal first, at Tokyo. Never know

[Sin Hombre]

I am undecided on whom to root for between Britain and Malaysia. Malaysia are a bogey team but Britain has the prowess to beat us in the tournament.

My choice is clear when it comes to choosing between an Asain nation and the piddly island. Go Malaysia gooo !

Easy answer which I agree with.

The piddly island has never supported us internationally either.

[jayakris]

Me too. No question of rooting for the piddly island in anything (even if they were playing the bug country!). Go Malaysia, go.

As of now, only Japan and India are in from Asia. KOR is behind NZL after one match. Hope Korea comes back, and Malaysia pulls a big upset.

[Sin Hombre]

All panicking aside, results are kind of as expected.

Our girls are barely better than the Americans and so it proved.

The men should not have conceded 3 goals, otherwise 11 goals over 2 matches is at par. The Russians have had a lot of time to prepare for this tie and would not have lost 10-0 again.



@rajit, a lot of analysis has gone into our prospects at Tokyo, please check those threads.

There is no need to tar a lot of wonderful athletes just because our hockey teams are not medal-class (and no one is counting on them to be either).

[depleter]

My question on the overall list remains and I feel we should revive the thread pre-mortem of Tokyo Olympics disaster. I somehow see it coming especially with a medal in badminton looking increasingly difficult

Our main medal chance this time is shooting though.

[jayakris]

rajit - here is the thread for general Olympics qualifications/predictions - viewtopic.php?f=7&t=219299#p4402887 ... I think everybody is sort of agreeing that we could be in the 8 to 12 range in medals and may not have a disaster of less than 5 or so medals. We may revive the "pre-mortem" thread, as we get closer to the Olympics though. The Olympics year tend to be our worst year in every 4-year cycle

[jayakris]

But I am happy that we have at least ONE world sport where we can beat the sports powerhouses USA and Russia. Don't have one where we can beat China now though. Maybe it was men's tennis once, but perhaps no longer. Hockey is indeed our national sport. Not that subcontinental sport where they eat lunch in the middle of the game ...

We have to be happy at the strides our women's hockey has made, in qualifying in twice in a row to Olympics (we had made it only to the depleted Moscow field in 1980, before this, right?). I remember the USA women's team coming to India and beating us for a similar qualifier some two decades ago (may be for 2000 qualification)... Hope I am not making that up. Anyway, nice outcomes today.

[sameerph]

My question on the overall list remains and I feel we should revive the thread pre-mortem of Tokyo Olympics disaster. I somehow see it coming especially with a medal in badminton looking increasingly difficult

Will update that in the Tokyo olympics thread soon. Qualifying still at an early stage for many sports. Apart from hockey teams, only shooters, wrestlers and men archers have qualfied so far. We will have a few more qualifying events in shooting, archery etc. in next couple of months. So, it will be worthwhile updating that list after that.

No need to despair right now as if you see our thread our chances for medals at Tokyo 2020 as of now look brighter than any of the earlier olympics. As of badminton, remember Sindhu was a world champion just 2 months back. So, she is still in our top medal list.

[prasen9]

I am undecided on whom to root for between Britain and Malaysia. Malaysia are a bogey team but Britain has the prowess to beat us in the tournament.

Malaysia.

[ssp]

The men may have qualified quite easily in the end, but don't inspire any confidence in crunch matches. In yesterday's game, Q1 & Q3 weren't good at all. I don't think the likes of Germany , GB and NZ (all ranked below us and playing higher ranked teams than Russia) would have allowed a WR22 team to be as close as that. The latest results confirm this (GB beat Malaysia 4-1, Germany beat Austria 5-0 & NZ Korea 3-0 today).

A QF defeat seems the most likely scenario at the Olympics. Although we are capable of messing up in the group stages because on current rankings, we will be playing Australia, Argentina, Spain, NZ & Japan. The other group will be Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, GB, Canada & South Africa. This may change a little bit because the Pro League & Azlan Shah tournaments will affect the ranking points.

I hope the women's poor result yesterday was a one off because they have made genuine progress in the last year or so. This was mainly because of addressing fitness issues, having a drag flicker and actually passing our way out of defence. Previously we had zero game plan apart from a maximum of 2 passes before hitting the ball straight to the opposition! The Tokyo groups are likely to be; Netherlands, Germany, GB, Ireland (assuming they beat Canada in the qualifier), India & South Africa and Argentina, Australia, NZ, Spain, China & Japan. Again, rankings in the remaining months could alter this a bit, but I can't see us going higher than 8th, which means we will still be in the Netherlands group. Getting a QF place would be great.

[jaydeep]

Agree with SSP's assessment about our men's team performance in the final qualifying. But I am also very positive about our chances of winning a medal at the Tokyo Olympic.
Yesterday our women team checked our heart conditions ... Happy for them, not expecting much but as SSP mentioned, it will be great if they qualify for QF.

[PKBasu]

So Pakistan's men are again out of the Olympics, having lost 5-10 to Holland.
France narrowly lost 5-6 to Spain.
Canada tied 6-6 with Ireland, but went through after winning the penalties 5-4
NZ knocked out Korea 6-2.