Men's Field Hockey FIH Olympic Games Qualifier 2019

[Siddhartha Talukdar 234]

Team sports are round robin then knockout format with each group containing 4 to 6 teams depending on the sport. If there's any weak team granted quota on basis of Universality, those matches shall be vastly one-sided and boring to watch for the neutral. Hence, the strongest teams should be given quotas in team sports. If weak nations have to be brought up they can be done in the respective sports' World Cup or World Championships. In any case no sport has equal quality in all continents and some continents dominate. All the team sports seem to follow the same qualification pattern - one from each continent and an additional qualification tournament for the rest. 

Since every continent is represented, how good or bad their top team is, it somewhat fulfills the Universality principle

Host nations can also be given quota on the condition they are good enough

[LDOG 2,418]

I think the only problem with this system was allowing Japan to take a continental quota (granted, nobody would have expected them to take both Men and Women). Other than that it's fine.

 

I'd rather see Malaysia or Pakistan making it than NZ or Canada who aren't much better and have way less potential to develop the sport than what the former have.

[JoshMartini007 2,537]

It's quite clear FIH prioritizes top teams over universality. Even ignoring the top 20 continent reallocation rule, the fact they seeded the away teams to prevent Austria or Russia to play New Zealand or Canada shows the federation only wanted the top ~15 teams (even if Austria/Russia beating New Zealand/Canada would have been a long shot). While there is nothing wrong with wanting top teams competing, it does showcase the lack of depth field hockey has which could play a factor should the Olympics look to cut team sports (though I imagine water polo would more likely be on the chopping block, but FINA does have a lot more pull...)

[intoronto 5,641]

23 minutes ago, JoshMartini007 said:

It's quite clear FIH prioritizes top teams over universality. Even ignoring the top 20 continent reallocation rule, the fact they seeded the away teams to prevent Austria or Russia to play New Zealand or Canada shows the federation only wanted the top ~15 teams (even if Austria/Russia beating New Zealand/Canada would have been a long shot). While there is nothing wrong with wanting top teams competing, it does showcase the lack of depth field hockey has which could play a factor should the Olympics look to cut team sports (though I imagine water polo would more likely be on the chopping block, but FINA does have a lot more pull...)

Field hockey was bottom 5 when wrestling was dropped, so it will likely be the team sport dropped if any. However with recent innvoations I do not think its going anywhere.

[JoshMartini007 2,537]

1 minute ago, intoronto said:

Field hockey was bottom 5 when wrestling was dropped, so it will likely be the team sport dropped if any. However with recent innvoations I do not think its going anywhere.

 

Yeah, it's unlikely we'll see any of the team sports dropped outside of the Olympics being forced to shrink in size or if another team sport like baseball/softball or cricket surpasses the worldwide distribution relative to the current team sports, but regardless you don't want to be on that chopping block.