Great Britain Hockey and the British Olympic Association have announced the players who will represent Team GB in this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Great Britain’s women’s 16-strong squad contains nine players who will be taking part in their first Olympic games. Laura Unsworth is set for her third Olympics, while six more will participate in their second Games, having each won a historic first women’s gold medal in Rio in 2016.
The men’s squad of 16 contains twelve players taking part in an Olympics for the first time. Captain Adam Dixon, David Ames, Ian Sloan and Sam Ward will partake in their second Olympics, with Ward showing incredible tenacity to overcome a serious eye injury earlier in the cycle and take his place on the plane.
At 20 and 21-years-old respectively, Izzy Petter and Fiona Crackles are the youngest members of the women’s squad and with proven performances will be looking to grasp this incredible opportunity with both hands. Zach Wallace, 21, is the youngest of the men’s squad, closely followed by Wales’ Jacob Draper and English goalkeeper Ollie Payne, who are both 22. Payne comes into the squad having played all of England’s matches in the recent EuroHockey Championships, where they finished fourth.
With 276 Great Britain and England caps to her name, Laura Unsworth is the most experienced women’s player by some distance, while men’s captain Adam Dixon has a total of 284 combined caps for Great Britain and England.
