This is an unprecedented schedule. The 25th edition of the Olympic field hockey Games will be the very first in which the French women’s team will participate. If the opponents of the Bleues and the Blues had already been known since January, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, and the president of the International Hockey Federation (FIH), Tayyab Ikram, met this Thursday to draw lots for the competition schedule.
All matches will be played at the Yves-du-Manoir stadium, in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), the only site in France to host the Olympic Games for the second time. The French men’s team will start the Olympic Games on July 27, with a first match against Germany, third team in the FIH international rankingsreigning world champion and gold medalist at the 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London) Olympic Games.
The next day, the French – ninth in the FIH international rankings – will face the Netherlands, double reigning European champions and favorites in these Olympic Games. A colossal launch for the Blues, who will then face Spain on July 30 (eighth team in the FIH ranking), Great Britain on August 1 (sixth) and South Africa on August 2 (fourteenth).
For its first Olympic participation, the French women’s team – 20th in the FIH rankings – finds itself at the foot of a colossus: it will play its opening match, on July 27, against the Netherlands, three-time champions of the world, quadruple European champions and gold medalists at the last Olympic Games. Furthermore, the monster is three-headed: the Blues will then face the women of Belgium, vice-champions of Europe 2017 and 2023 (behind the Netherlands), then those of Germany, also vice-champions of Europe, this time in 2019 and 2021 (again behind the Netherlands). To prepare for this vigorous start, a large part of the team coached by Gaël Foulard put their professional career on hold, as reported RMC Sports.
The French women’s team will end its preliminary phase with Japan on August 1 (tenth team in the FIH rankings), and China (eighth) on August 3.
The men’s and women’s tournaments are each made up of two pools of six teams. The first four teams from each group advance to the quarter-finals. If the French men’s team has not reached the semi-finals since 1936, the women’s team has everything to write about.
