With just one final Hockey World League Round 1 event remaining which will take place in Fiji, in December 2014 for both the men and women’s teams, heads are already turning to Round 2 and the line-ups for these tournaments.
All teams who were victorious in their Round 1 event have automatically qualified for Round 2 which kicks off in January with the first event in Singapore, finishing in Dublin at the end of March 2015.
Following a number of withdrawals from various Round 1 events, FIH’s Competitions Committee at their recent meeting (September 2014) reviewed the number of qualification places to Round 2 from each of the various Round 1 events.
In respect of the women’s events, the Committee decided that there would be no change from those originally advised from their September 2013 meeting. However, there was an additional place available in Round 2 as a result of the earlier decision by FIH’s Executive Board to award one of the 2015 Hockey World League Semi-Finals to Spain. Therefore the Competitions Committee decided that this newly available place should be allocated to the highest World Ranked team (as of 26 September 2014) which finished immediately below the last qualified team* in the event in which they participated. This place has been offered to Poland.
In the men’s category, in addition to the automatic qualifiers, and the various winners of the Round 1 events, Switzerland and the Czech Republic who finished second in their respective tournaments have been awarded qualification places for Round 2. The three other places available were awarded using the same principle as above, for allocating the vacant women’s places, and this resulted in Oman, Ukraine and Italy also being offered places in Round 2.
Below is the line up’s, dates and locations for Round.
* ‘last qualified team’ shall include the only qualified team in a tournament where only one team qualified automatically.
Men Round 2
| Dates | Location | Teams |
| 17-25 Jan | Singapore |
Bangladesh / Japan / Malaysia / Oman / Poland / Singapore / Ukraine + 1 to be confirmed from HWL R1 Fiji 2014
|
| 28 Feb – 5 March | San Diego, USA |
Austria / Canada / Chile / Ireland / Italy / Russia / Trinidad & Tobago / USA
|
| 7 – 15 March | Cape Town, South Africa |
Azerbaijan / Belarus / China / Czech Republic / Egypt / France / South Africa / Switzerland
|
Women Round 2
| Dates | Location | Teams |
| 12-22Feb | Montevideo, Uruguay |
Azerbaijan / Dominican Republic / France / Italy / Kenya / Mexico / Trinidad & Tobago / Uruguay
|
| 7-15 March | New Delhi, India |
India / Kazakhstan / Malaysia / Poland / Russia / Sri Lanka / Thailand + 1 to be confirmed from HWL R1 Fiji Dec 2014
|
| 14 – 22 March | Dublin, Ireland |
Austria / Belarus/ Canada / Chile / Turkey / Ireland / Lithuania / Ukraine
|
Source: FIH
Photograph: EHF/Frank Uijlenbroek