Zimpapers Logo

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter

HOCKEY Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ) secretary-general, Sarah Bennett, was this week appointed as one of the 14 technical officials for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games despite the country’s two representative teams’ failure to qualify for the global showpiece.

The appointment was confirmed by the International Hockey Federation on Wednesday while announcing officials for the Olympics, which it said was based on the organisation’s ‘‘Equally Amazing’’ policy.

“The International Hockey Federation (FIH) today revealed the list of officials appointed for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 hockey tournaments.

In accordance with the agreed guidelines and processes of FIH, all appointed officials come from the FIH Pro League panels as these are the top-rated officials. While performance was the primary selection criteria, the Officials Committee also looked, as a secondary consideration, at the geographic spread of the officials to ensure that all continents are represented,” said FIH on its official website on Wednesday.

“As a further demonstration of FIH’s ‘Equally Amazing’ policy, the Technical Officials will work across both genders’ matches. Furthermore, while on-field umpires will be the same gender, video umpires may be the other gender as has been successfully implemented during the FIH Pro League this year.”

Although Zimbabwe’s men and women’s teams failed to make it to the Olympic finals, the women team’s bronze medal finish saw them making amazing jumps in the world hockey rankings, from 66th to 46th.

“Zimbabwe’s superb bronze medal at last month’s African Hockey Road to Tokyo 2020 competition in Stellenbosch, South Africa, has resulted in one of the biggest jumps in this rankings update, progressing twenty places up the table from 66th to 46th position,” wrote FIH.

The 2020 Olympic hockey tournaments will be staged in Japan’s capital city from July 25 to August 7.