Tokyo, Aug 3 (EFE) .- The Belgian and Australian teams will play the final of the Tokyo 2020 men’s hockey tournament on Thursday 5th, after defeating India and Germany in the semifinals, respectively.
Belgium, the executioner of Spain in the quarterfinals, will play its second final, after falling in Rio 2016. The Belgians beat India (2-5) in the first semifinal today, with a treble by Alexander Hendricks in the last two quarters -two from a penalty corner and one from a stroke- with which he adds a total of 14 goals.
Although Belgium went ahead after two minutes, India managed to tie and take the lead (2-1) to lead on the scoreboard for ten minutes in search of an Olympic final that is still not reached despite being the team that has the most gold -eight between 1920 and 1980-.
The Belgians have never won gold. They lost the last final in Rio 2016 to Argentina and come to this as current world champions in India 2018. After this World Cup, they were crowned European champions in the 2019 continental event and were bronze in the recent European Championship played last June.
The second semifinal was resolved in favor of Australia, who defeated Germany (3-1) after taking the lead in the first quarter, taking off again in the second, after the German draw, and sentencing in the last with Lachlan’s second goal. Thomas, who was the one who opened the scoring.
The Australian team, recently winner of the Pro League, was eliminated in Rio in the quarterfinals against the Netherlands and was bronze in the 2018 World Cup.
The oceanic won gold in Athens 2004, they were silver in Mexico’68, Montreal’76 and Barcelona’92 and bronze in Tokyo 64, Atlanta’96, Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
In the absence of solving the final and the bronze match between Germans and Indians, the FIH confirmed on Tuesday the rankings of the men’s and women’s competition from fifth to twelfth place, in which Spain appears in eighth and seventh place respectively.
Fred Soyez’s team appears in the men’s table in eighth position, behind Great Britain (5th), the Netherlands (6th) and Argentina (7th).
New Zealand, South Africa, Japan and Canada occupy the rest of the positions in this order.
In the female category, the “RedSticks” led by Adrian Lock are seventh, behind Australia (5th) and Germany (6th) and ahead of New Zealand (8th).
China (9th), Ireland (10th), Japan (11th) and South Africa (12th) complete the final table of Tokyo 2020, awaiting tomorrow’s Netherlands-Great Britain and Argentina-India semifinals.
(c) EFE Agency
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