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Athens 2004

First time Olympic golds for Australia’s men and German women. Heartbreak for the formidable Dutch in both finals. And nothing more than a bronze for the respective world champions. After two weeks of intense competition at the Helliniko stadium, a shift in power indicated a reshuffle at the top when the new field hockey rankings are announced next week.

Australian men finally exorcised the Olympic demons by winning a title that eluded them despite a top-four finish in eight of their last nine appearances at the Summer Games. The Kookaburras finally struck gold in their fourth final when Jamie Dwyer’s golden goal secured them a 2-1 victory over the Netherlands in Friday’s rousing final. “The mickey is off the back,” said Australian coach Barry Dancer. “We will never be called chokers again.”

The Dutch setback, which ended their bid for a hat-trick of titles after winning golds at both Atlanta and Sydney, followed the loss of their women’s team in Thursday’s final against rank outsiders Germany. The Dutch men and women won all their matches till the final but stumbled at the last hurdle, leaving behind a horde of disappointed Oranje supporters.

Few gave the German girls a chance after their seventh-place finish at both the Sydney Games and the 2002 World Cup in Australia. But coach Markus Weise’s wards began the competition with a 2-1 win over Australia’s famed Hockeyroos, the defending champions, and ended it with the gold medal by a similar margin. “We are back in the business of women’s hockey,” said Weise. “The impossible becomes possible when you are there 150 percent.”

The Hockeyroos came to Athens hoping to win, like the Dutch men, their third consecutive gold medal. They failed to get past the preliminary league stage. Captain Katrina Powell, who was part of former coach Ric Charlesworth’s world-beating side at Atlanta and Sydney, was inconsolable. “I did not know what losing meant at the Olympics,” she said. “But we were not the best team in Athens.”

It’s a sentiment that world champions Germany (men) and Argentina (women) will share. Florian Kunz’ Germans came to the Olympics as one of the favourites with the 2002 World Cup and 2004 European championship titles already in the bag. They managed to win the bronze only after a golden goal victory in the play-offs against Spain, Bjoern Michel giving them the winner in his last international match.

The Argentine women, led by star midfielder Luciana Aymer, were unlucky to lose the tie-breaker to the Dutch in the semi-finals after both teams were locked 2-2 at the end of extra-time. Aymer’s golden goal gave them the bronze against China, who entered their first Olympic semi-finals and will be a bigger force at home in Beijing in 2008. The Chinese, with four wins out of five, held aloft Asia’s flag at the competition while others around them faltered.

Three-time champions Pakistan fell one place below their fourth position at Sydney despite penalty corner specialist Sohail Abbas emerging as the competition’s leading scorer with 11 goals.

India, who won the last of their eight golds 24 years ago in Moscow, only managed to retain their seventh place in Sydney after reserving their best for the end – a rousing 5-2 win over Asian Games champions South Korea in the play-offs. “The best teams won in the end,” said India’s German coach Gerhard Rach. “It will take a long time before Asia are champions again.” afp

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