Pakistan will need to improve its hockey ranking by nearly eight places in less than a year if they want to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics scheduled in July-August in Paris, France.
Aside from the Asian Games champions, South Korea, there are some top Asian teams that can still qualify to compete in the pre-Paris Games qualifying round in order to qualify for the mega event.
According to the details, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved the qualification path for the marquee events in Paris as proposed by the International Hockey Federation (FIH).
Here is the qualification process:
The host country, France have automatically qualified given that they finished in the top 25 rankings at the end of last year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Five teams will be decided through Continental Qualifications; the winning teams from the following continental competitions, Pan American Games 2023, Asian Games 2022, Euro Hockey Championship 2023, Oceania Cup 2023, African Hockey Road to Paris 2023 will be eligible to participate in the event.
Six teams will qualify for the Olympics through the FIH Hockey Olympic Qualification Tournaments; two FIH Hockey Olympic Qualification tournaments with eight teams each (16 teams total) will be held at the start of 2024 and will decide the fate of the teams.
The number of teams from each continent that will compete in these tournaments will be determined by Continental quotas based on the FIH World Rankings as of 31 January 2023.
