Buenos Aires: Luciana Aymar has been hailed as the most famous member of “Las Leonas” (The Lionesses), the Argentinean women’s field hockey team that will participate in the Olympic Games of Beijing 2008, according to local media.
Aymar, born August 10, 1977 in the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe, is known in Argentina as the “Maradona of Hockey ”. She has been named the best player of the world in 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2007.
The offensive midfielder will be the mainstay of the Argentine team which has won almost everything except an Olympic gold, since it won the silver in Sydney 2000 and bronze in Athens in 2004. The team won the Champions Trophy of Amstelveen 2001 and the Munchengladbach 2008, besides the World Cup in Perth 2002.
Aymar is part of a gold generation of the amateur sport in the country. In 2007, a lesion in her left knee kept her from the field, but Aymar who had thought of retiring, recovered and was the best player in the recent Champions Trophy where Argentina beat Germany 6-2 in the final.
No doubt, Aymar and “Las Leonas”, due to their high competitiveness, have marked a before and an after in field hockey in Argentina. XINHUA