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The sport of Field Hockey originated in Great Britain and quickly became popular around the world in countries which held british colonies and when Field Hockey made its first appearance at the Olympics in the 1908 London games it was these countries that fought for the title. However as time moved forward the sport became popular around the world and many different nations started winning titles. In the 1980 Moscow games the Women made their Olympic debut on the field and have been a staple of the games. The sport is one of the lesser popular ones, but it holds alot of excitment and entertainment.
Field Hockey is played on astroturf (artificial grass) pitches that are 91.4m long and 55m wide which has a layer of water on it that eneables the ball to move quicker by reducing the friction. The goal of the game is to get a ball into the opposing teams goal using a special hockey stick and players must be inside the opposing teams scoring zone to be allowed too shoot at the goal. Each team compromises of 11 players where one player is the goalie and there can be up to five substitutes that can be used at any time of the game. Usually at the Olympic games the pitch is green, but in London the pitch will be blue which might cause some problems for teams that aren't used to playing on blue surfaces. There are two gold medals up for grabs, one for the men and one for the women. There are twelve teams in each competition thats been split into two pools of six where every team plays each other with the two best teams from each group advancing into the semi-finals.
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The favourites in the mens competition are current Olympic Champion Germany and the currently number one ranked team in the world Australia. Outside favourites are the Netherlands and home favourites Great Britain that might just get enough support from the home crowd to take home the gold. In the Womens competition the favourites are the current Olympic Champions and world ranked number one the Netherlands. Their biggest competition comes from Argentina, Germany with Great Britain as outside favourites.
I think this Olympics will have full stands with crowds cheering for the home favourites and with the added pressure of a new colour on the pitch who knows which teams will end up on top this time around I can't wait to see.
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