FIH Champions Trophy:Tournament switched From Argentina to London,starting June 10

The men's event was switched to London after the FIH cancelled its contract with the Argentine Hockey Confederation.

 
Germany will return to the scene of their Olympic triumph four years ago as they prepare for this year's Rio Games at the Champions Trophy in London in June.

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) confirmed on Tuesday that the week-long tournament, originally scheduled for Argentina, will be held at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park starting on June 10.

Germany's men, who will be bidding for a hat-trick of Olympic titles in August having also won gold in Beijing, will be joined by Australia, Belgium, Britain, India and South Korea.

Germany will open their campaign against India on June 10 when Britain face Australia in a repeat of the bronze medal match at London 2012 which Australia won 3-1.

The women's Champions Trophy will take place in the same venue the week before.

The men's event was switched to London after the FIH cancelled its contract with the Argentine Hockey Confederation over a dispute about television rights contracts and sponsorship.

This year’s men’s showcase event will see Australia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, India and Korea go head to head as they battle it out to be crowned the best of the best as Hockey Champions Trophy winners.

Speaking about this announcement FIH CEO Kelly Fairweather said: “Following the hugely successful 2012 Olympic Games and more recently the Unibet EuroHockey Championships held in this venue we know that England Hockey and all of their partners will truly embrace the FIH Hockey Revolution’s vision of creating innovative and exciting events for our fans. This is key to our aim of making hockey a global game that inspires the next generation.”

He continued: “This is the first FIH event to be held here as part of a three event series in addition to the 2017 men’s Hockey World League Semi-Final and the women’s Hockey World Cup in 2018. We are reaching out to sports fans and asking them to join us, particularly this year as we get the Rio Olympic festivities underway right here in the legacy venue in London’s Olympic Park.”

The opening day of play sees hosts Great Britain, currently ranked fourth in the FIH World Rankings (based on England’s position), get their campaign started against the world’s top ranked team - reigning World Cup and World League champions Australia.

Some mouth-watering action then gets Saturday 11 June off to a flyer as reigning Olympic and defending champions Germany (ranked third) go head to head against Hero Hockey World League Final 2015 runners-up Belgium (ranked fifth).

Other schedule highlights include a rerun of the 2014 Hero Hockey Champions Trophy semi-final between Germany and Australia on Monday 13 June, before the all-Asian derby between 2014 Asian Games champions India (ranked seventh) and 2014 Champions Challenge winners Korea (ranked ninth) takes place the following day.

The round-robin games will conclude on Thursday 16 June before the classification games begin the next day, with the final taking place at 20:15 on Friday 17 June.

With the line-ups and location now set for both the men’s and women’s Hockey Champions Trophies, the stage is set for two truly epic competitions.

These will be the last major international hockey events before many of these teams meet again at the Rio 2016 Olympics. With the matches taking place in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, host of the 2012 Games, the Hockey Champions Trophy will officially kick off the sport’s Olympic celebrations.





Source:sportskeeda and FIH