25th Jan, 2004: Legendary Rajbir Rai, who represented India for about 14 years between 1981 and 1994, will grace the Women’s Asia Cup as one of the six judges. The top scorer of the 1982 Asian Games when Indian women won their gold, is now a Punjab Women Hockey Association’s on and off selector. The officer with the Punjab & Sind Bank will have another Indian Kalpana Pandey in the judge’s bench in New Delhi. Joining the duo will be Lee Mi Ok of South Korea, who was also a judge at the last Women’s World Cup and Asian Games.

Rajbir’s presence will help the media as she is known to be well interactive and ready to offer quotes. At the Afro-Asian Games, Padamshree Eliza was one of the Judges, but her services were not availed by the media.

Stephanie Hodges, who was the Judge at both Perth Women’s World Cup and Champions Trophy in 2002. will discharge the duties of Technical Delegate.

Japan’s Masako Kamisuki, Umpires’ Manager of the last Women’s Asian Games, will carryout the same duty here at Delhi too.

The Technical Official list, copy of which is with stick2hockey.com surprisingly includes no representation from China. All the more surprising as China had two umpires when it hosted the Champions Trophy last year at Macau. It is expected the anomaly will be rectified soon. Also missing is Kazakhstan’s representative.

COMPLETE LIST OF OFFICIALS: TD: Ms. Stephanie Hodges (Singapore), Technical Officers: Devinder Bhatia (India) and Margaret Fong (Malaysia). Umpires Manager: Masako Kamsuki (Japan), Neutral Umpires: Alison Hill (England) and Monica Rivers (Spain). Umpires: Radha Sukumaran and Happy Mann, both India, Emi Furuta, Japan, Kang Hyn Young, (South Korea), Ivonne Darling (Sri Lanka), Khabaria Suketu (Singapore) and Nor Piza Hassan (Malaysia), Judges: Rajbir Rai (India), Kalpana Pandey (India), Nagula Sivasothy (Malaysia), Nirmal Ettopola (Sri Lanka), Lee Mi Ok (SK); Medical Officer: Dr. PSM Chandran, Media Officers: Norris Pritam and Kaul.