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Awesome Aussies Australia defends gold medalLatest: Sunday October 08, 2000 05:31 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- Australia defeated Argentina 3-1 on to win the gold medal in women's field hockey on Friday. With the win, Australia became the first country in 20 years win consecutive Olympic gold medals in women's field hockey. A boisterous, capacity crowd of 15,000 began celebrating as soon as Alyson Annan opened the scoring in the 10th minute with a flash strike. The world champion Australians were rebounding from their shock loss in this year's Champions Trophy in Amsterdam. Before that, the Hockeyroos had won all major titles since 1993. With the victory, four-time Olympian Rechelle Hawkes became only the third Australian to win three Olympic gold medals, after Dawn Fraser and Andrew Hoy. Hawkes, 33, a member of the gold medalist teams of 1988 and 1996, read the oath on behalf of all athletes at the Sydney Games' Opening Ceremony. "It was absolute magic to win the gold in front of the Australian crowd," Hawkes said. "The impact of the gold medal hasn't sunk in yet. "This is the way for me to go out and over the moon. The win in Atlanta was wonderful but this topped it all as it was in front of the home crowd. These moments will live with me forever."
Renita Garard, Australia's captain under a rotating system, said, "It's unbelievable ... out of this world. It's a difficult game. You can play well and not win, but today we weren't going to be denied." Annan sent a reflex flick past onrushing goalkeeper Mariela Antoniska as Australia penetrated the hard-tackling Argentine defense for the first time. Juliet Haslem increased the Aussie lead in the 27th minute when she capitalized on a rebound after the goalkeeper blocked Katrina Powell's shot. Jenny Morris put the game out of reach three minutes into the second half with a firm penalty corner drive. The Argentine women were rewarded with a goal from Vanina Oneto in the 45th minute after skipper Karina Masotta split the defense with a deft square pass inside the scoring zone. The triumph marked the end of coach Ric Charlesworth's era at the helm. Charlesworth, captain of the 1986 World Cup winning team, already had announced his decision to leave the job after the Sydney Games. This year's Champions Trophy was the only title the Hockeyroos did not win since Charlesworth took over as coach after the Barcelona Olympics. Spain beat Australia in the final to win the gold at Barcelona in 1992. Australia now has won gold at three of the six Games since women's field hockey was added to the Olympics in 1980. Zimbabwe, which won at the boycotted 1980 Games in Moscow, the Netherlands and Spain are the other nations with women's hockey golds. This was Australia's second triumph against Argentina in the final of a major competition in six years. The Aussies also beat Argentina in the final of the 1994 World Cup in Dublin after having lost to that team in the preliminary round. "We're honored to have been there with Ric," Garard said. "It's been a good challenge to do it over and over again. To reproduce [title triumphs] we've had to work really, bloody hard." Earlier Friday, the Champions Trophy holder Netherlands defeated Spain 2-0 for the bronze, the same medal it had won in 1996. The Dutch, losing finalists in the 1998 World Cup, overcame 1992 gold medalist Spain with goals from Ageeth Boomgaardt and Carole Thate. Boomgaardt converted the first Dutch penalty corner in the 10th minute. Spain's young team tried hard to break through the Netherlands' defense but frequent Dutch counterattacks kept it from going all out on the attack. That settled the match with a fine open play strike after picking up a diagonal pass on the right flank and shooting into the far corner of the goal 19 minutes into the second half. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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