Hockey: Aussies the big draw for GB at London test event

GREAT Britain’s hockey teams will face top-class opposition in an Olympic test event prior to this summer’s Games in London.

Australia and Germany, the top two in the men’s game, will be joined by eight-time gold medal winners India for a four-nations event to be held at the 16,000-seater Riverbank Arena in the Olympic Park.

World champions Argentina are the top draw in the women’s event, with China and South Korea also taking up invitations for the tournament.

“The exciting one for us was to play Australia at home,” GB men’s coach Jason Lee said last night.

“We know they will be in our group at the Olympics and being from the other side of the world we don’t get much chance to see them or play against them.

“Germany are of a very high standard and play a different way to Australia and so that contrast will help us and to face an Asian side gives us three distinctly different styles.

“The home advantage we have is for the crowd to get behind us and we know it is down to us to play in a style which will get them cheering us on.”

The Visa International Invitational hockey tournament takes place between 2 and 6 May, and runs alongside six other Olympic test events at the park.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s women have learned who they will face in the IH Champions Challenge in October. Australia, Spain, Ireland, South Africa, United States and Belgium – all ranked above the Scots – will provide stiff opposition at a venue yet to be decided.

Strangely, there is a place still to be allocated by the FIH, which could perhaps go to India who finished seventh in last year’s tournament in Dublin.