Beijing: For the second successive Olympic Games, there will be no Asian team on the podium at the hockey competition. Asian champions South Korea, who had an outside chance of making the last four grade Tuesday, were beaten 1-2 and shut out of the semi-finals. Pakistan and China were already out of the reckoning.
The Olympic men’s hock ey competition semi-finals, which are scheduled from Thursday, will feature three European team battling against defending champions Australia.
Spain meet Australia in one semi-final and the other one will see World Cup champions Germany meeting the Netherlands.
Interestingly, three of the four semi-finalists are still unbeaten in the competition, with only Spain having lost a league match to Germany by a solitary goal.
This will be the fourth time in last six Olympic Games since Seoul in 1988 that the Asian teams have failed to win any medals, emphasising the demise of Asian teams in the sport, where they once dominated through the exploits of eight-time champions India and three-times winners Pakistan.
India’s former hockey captain Ajit Pal Singh is among a group of former skippers who is here to watch and observe other teams in fray. PTI