As many as 10 national teams, including hosts Qatar, will participate in the Indoor Asia Cup Hockey Championship starting tomorrow.
The tournament, the biggest of its kind hosted by Qatar, will see some of the best men and women national teams in Asia face off for a spot at the Indoor Hockey World Cup 2018 in Berlin in February next year.
Iran have dominated the men’s tournament, winning every edition since the event was introduced in 2008.
After the women’s teams were incorporated into the competition a year later, Kazakhstan were crowned champions four times, barring the first edition, which was won by Malaysia.
In the last edition of the tournament hosted in 2015 in Kazakhstan, Qatar had finished fourth with Iran picking up their sixth straight title.
“I have been with the team for the last two years and we have been working really hard on the project,” said Maggid Abu-Talib, the head coach of the Qatar national team, who will turn 32 on the opening day of the tournament.
“The idea is to definitely play tournaments, but at the same time to also climb the rankings. Two years ago, we had no ranking at all. But now we are ranked 20th in the world in the indoor, and 54th in the outdoor game.”
In the last two years, Qatar have played quite a few tournaments, including the Asian Indoors in 2015, where they finished fourth, and Arab Indoors the same year here in Doha, when they were runners-up.
The team narrowly missed out on a spot at the 2014 Asian Games.
For the five-day tournament that’s starting tomorrow, Qatar have been drawn with powerhouse Iran, four-time men’s finalists Malaysia, and Oman.
The other group for the men’s competition comprises Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Chinese Taipei and Thailand.
The top two teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals.
Six teams will participate in the women’s competition, including Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, China and North Korea. The top two teams will play the final, with the winner making it to the World Cup.
“Our players have been together for quite a few years, and we are hoping they will do a good job at the tournament. The finalists will reach the World Cup, and so there is a lot at stake,” Qatar Board of Cricket, Hockey and Rugby president Yousef al-Kuwari said at a press conference ahead of the tournament.
Al-Kuwari, who was the Qatar Rugby Federation president till recently, recently took charge of all three sports together.
“Three federations is quite challenging but with our team, with our general secretary (Abdulla al-Khater), we a very much ready to handle these important sports. We will have a plan for each of the disciplines to try and take it forward in the future,” al-Kuwari said, ahead of what is perhaps the first continental level hockey tournament to be hosted in Qatar.
“Hockey is a different sport, which needs more efforts. We need to be focused and we will have to look at ways to increase the number of players in the country. And we will do our best to bring it to the public so they can enjoy. Frankly, hockey is a very entertaining and fast game to watch.”
Just as with rugby, hockey too faces an infrastructure problem.
“Indoor hockey has facilities but the outdoor version of the game does not. But sometimes we have to be creative about solving problems like these. We are in discussions with the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) to look at alternatives because it is going to be difficult to grow the sport in the country without proper facilities,” al-Kuwari said.
“We only have a few teams in hockey. However, we are definitely looking at creating more teams, and the indoor version of the game will help us do that, especially because it is played 5x5.”
Qatar will open their campaign against Oman in the last match of the day tomorrow.
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