Women’s Asian Champions Trophy 2021 hockey to start in December
The Indian women’s hockey team has won the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy in 2016 and finished runners-up last time.
The Women’s Asian Champions Trophy 2021 will be held from December 5 to 12 in Donghae, South Korea, the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) announced on Friday.
The biennial tournament, now in its sixth edition, has already been postponed thrice due to the pandemic. It was last slated to be held from October 24-31.
The tournament will now be held completely at the Donghae City Sunrise Stadium.
South Korea are the defending champions and the most successful nation in the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy with three titles. They defeated India in the final of the previous edition in 2018.
The Indian women’s hockey team won the Asian Champions Trophy in 2016 and has finished second on two occasions (2013, 2018)
The Rani Rampal-led Indian hockey team was last in action at the Tokyo Olympics, where it reached the semi-finals.
The Women’s Asian Champions Trophy is usually played between the five best international hockey teams from Asia but has been expanded to six teams in 2021. China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand will be contesting for the title this time.
World No. 8 India are the top-ranked team in the tournament. China is 10th and Korea 11th.
The competition generally follows a round-robin format where each team plays all other teams once. The top two teams after this stage play for the title.
The men’s edition of the Asian Champions Trophy will also be held in December but in Bangladesh.