Field Hockey at the Olympics
Field hockey was first introduced at the Olympic Games for men in 1908 in London. It was subsequently removed from the Olympics at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games due to the lack of an international structure. It was back in 1928 after The International Hockey Federation (FIH) was founded.
Changes for 2016
For Rio 2016 the FIH have changed the structure of games, instead of two 35-minute halves, there will be 60-minute games broken into four quarters. After the first and third quarters each team will have a two-minute break, with a 10-minute break at half-time.
- Great Britain won gold, silver and bronze in hockey competition in 1908, the first time the sport was contested at Olympic level.
- For a long period of time India and Pakistan dominated the Olympics, with India winning gold in every Olympics from 1928-1956.
- Women's hockey was introduced at the 1980 Moscow Games.
- Zimbabwe's gold medal winning women's hockey players were each rewarded with an ox when they returned home from the 1980 Games.
- Olympic field hockey games were first played on artificial turf in Montreal in 1976.
- At Barcelona in 1992, Andreas Keller won a gold medal as part of the German field hockey team, and became the third generation of his family to win a medal in the event. His grandfather, Erwin, earned a silver medal in 1936 and his father, Carsten, a gold in 1972.
- The best all-time performing hockey players at the Olympic Games is the Indian players Leslie Claudius and Udham Singh with four medals each (3 gold). They played in the same teams between 1948–1960. See more on the Greatest Hockey Players at the Olympics.