India, Pak in same pool for Olympics qualifiers PTI[ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 05, 2003 05:57:25 PM ]
NEW DELHI: After a series of high-voltage exchanges, India and arch-rivals Pakistan will have a fresh round of tussle for hockey supremacy in March 2004, having being drawn in the same pool for the Olympic qualifiers to be held in Madrid.
India and Pakistan have been clubbed in the relatively easy Pool-B which has Malaysia, New Zealand, Belgium and Canada as the other teams for the March 2-13 event.
The Indians, who won the Asia Cup and the Afro-Asian Games titles during the last one month, have a good chance of securing a berth for the Athens Olympics since three teams from each group will make it to the world's biggest sporting extravaganza.
The draw made by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) as per the latest official rankings will see the Netherlands, England, Spain, Japan, South Africa and Poland vie for top honours from Pool A.
"Our boys are in fine form and are in the right frame of mind for the qualifiers. We have two tournaments coming up before March, which will help them overcome their shortcomings before the qualifiers begin," Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) sources said here on Wednesday.
In all six teams will qualify from both Pools and they will be playing at Athens alongwith six continental winners.
However, the Indian women's team, which won two major titles including the Commonwealth Games and the Afro-Asian Games since June 2002, was not much fortunate since they will miss the action in the qualifiers in Wellington.
The Indians eves, who have a world ranking of 13, have been put in as the first reserve and could only make it to the
According to the latest rankings released by the FIH recently, the Indian men's team, despite some fine showings in recent times has been put in the sixth position behind Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Korea and Pakistan.
In the last five months the Indians have won four titles -- the three-leg tournament in Australia, four-nation meet in Hamburg, Asia Cup in Malaysia and the just-concluded Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad.
But the FIH clarified that "the system ensures that as far as rankings are concerned, success at a single tournament even the Olympic Games or World Cup, will not be sufficient to make up for poor form in the precedings 3-4 years and vice-versa.
"It is intended that the ranking system will truely reflect a team's performance over a 4-year cycle.
"However, results from the past will be progressively less weighted year by year (25 per cent discount per year over a 4-year cycle) until they are deleted from the calculations," the FIH website said.
Amongst the women's teams, Argentina topped the rankings and were followed by Netherlands, Australia, China, England, Korea, Spain, Germany, New Zealand and the United States in the top-ten list.
In the men's list, Argentina, England, Spain and Malaysia follow India in the rankings.
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