The field for the 2012 London Olympics are set following the completion of this week’s last-chance World Qualification Tournament in Italy.
After a 7-6 victory in the final match, the Russia women sealed the final spot in London, sending Canada home to regroup before attacking post-Olympic play. That will mark the second-straight Olympics at which the Canadians haven’t qualified, despite placing 2nd at the 2009 World Championships.
There was a huge sigh of disappointment to the north, as there were high hopes for this team. Keep in mind that at the Pan Am Games, an auto qualifier, they took the defending silver-medalist Americans through two scoreless overtimes, and into a shootout that resulted in a 27-26 final score.
Men’s Field
We’ll break down the competition further once the draws are out, but on the men’s side, Serbia has to be a a slight favorite after winning both the Super-League Final last year, as well as losing to Italy in Overtime at last year’s World Championships. But at this point, it’s more of a toss-up between the Serbs and Italy. In their two Championship matches in 2011, both final scores were 8-7, with one going each direction.
The defending silver-medalist American men have had an up-and-down season, though their leader Tony Azevedo has sounded confident headed towards the Olympics. They made (and lost) the bronze-medal final in the World League, but finished only 6th at the World Championships.That included a tough round-robin loss to Germany, who is not having a great season.
The defending champions Hungary have been hanging-back in the last year, and have an uphill battle if they want to win a 4th-straight Olympic gold medal. They don’t compete in many of the major international tournaments, but were relegated to the bronze medal matches of both the World and European Championship tournaments.
But they are a veteran team – at least four players on what is presumed to be their Olympic Team have a trio of gold medals in their trophy cases. You can’t ever count out a team with that much experience.
The Europeans again dominate this men’s field, with 9 out of the 12 spots. The only teams from outside the Continent are Kazakhstan (who surprised a bit to take the Asian bid), the United States, and Australia.
Women’s Field
Meanwhile for the Women, the defending champions from the Netherlands didn’t even make the field of 8 (it’s a much tighter qualifying as compared to the 12 men’s teams invited). They appeared to be en route to qualifying at this week’s last chance qualifying tournament. All they had to do was beat a bad Italian team in the first round of the knockout phase (all of the semi-finalists in the tournament stamped their tickets).
But the Dutch choked away a one-goal lead in the final period, which leaves the gold-medal competition wide-open.
The Greeks (winners of the FINA World Championship) and the Americans (who were upset at that same tournament by a good, but not great, Russian team in the first round) have the two best players in the world right now in Alexandra Asimaki and goalie Betsey Armstrong, respectively.
The Australians (both men and women) had the easiest road to qualifying, as they automatically get the Oceania bid. They took bronze in 2008, and are always tough in the Olympics (having never finished lower than 4th).
This women’s field of 8 is nearly identical to the one from 2008. The only difference is that the gold medalists Holland are replaced by the hosts, Great Britain.
The full field is below:
Men
Great Britain*
Serbia
Italy
Croatia
Hungary
USA
Kazakhstan
Australia
Montenegro
Spain
Greece
Romania
Women
Great Britain*
United States
China
Australia
Hungary
Russia
Spain
Italy