SA Hockey vows to keep fighting to get teams to Rio Olympics

The South African Hockey Association (Saha) says it will look at ways of trying to get the men’s and women’s teams to the 2016 Olympics after they were rejected by the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).

Saha said yesterday it had received a letter from Sascoc informing them that the teams would not go to the Rio Games next August.

It’s the first time since readmission in 1992 that SA will have no hockey team at an Olympics.

"SA Hockey will now explore any other possible avenues that may be available to us to further advance the possibility of entry for the Rio Olympic Games," Saha said in a statement.

Saha CEO Marissa Langeni said the federation was seeking advice from the International Hockey Federation.

Sascoc had insisted that the teams qualify for the Rio Games by achieving the international qualifying standards, which involved making the top six in the World Hockey League.

Both teams failed, but they did earn a secondary qualification by winning the African championships in Johannesburg last month.

Sascoc, however, refused to accept continental qualification for any codes, with the sole exception of football, which has no international option.

"The South African Hockey Association has with regret received the news that the South African hockey national teams will not be permitted to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as per the letter received from Sascoc today," Saha said.

A strongly worded letter from Langeni to her Sascoc counterpart, Tubby Reddy, suggested that her federation may be preparing for a legal battle down the line.

Sascoc has frequently pointed out that Saha voluntarily signed the qualification agreement.

But Langeni wrote: "We must also categorically state that it is our view that the criteria was in fact not even negotiable.

"The agreement presented to SA Hockey was in fact a final decision and this is clearly demonstrated in all correspondence between the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the office of the Sascoc CEO. All such correspondence from March to June advising the FIH of Sascoc’s criteria was all prior to SA Hockey signing the agreement.

"The intention of Sascoc to not negotiate the criteria was clear and in good faith it is also correct to say that whether we signed the agreement or not, it was merely a formality and in fact has turned out to be a mistake on our part as we simply accepted the ‘fait accompli’."

Langeni also pointed out that the exclusion of the teams, which would have looked to break into the world’s top 10 at the Olympics, would be crippling for the sport.

Missing the Games would mean both would drop four places — the women to 15th and the men to 19th.

"No matter how good the next generation of players are, they will walk into a team with a ranking outside of the top 10.

"These facts must be taken into consideration in the best interest of the sport.

"The SA women in Rio would simply have to win two matches to move higher in rankings to top 10. The SA men have a real chance of breaking into the top nine."

She added that the Olympics should be considered preparation for the Durban 2022 Commonwealth Games, where hockey was looking at winning medals.

"Hockey high performance experts seem to agree on the philosophy that it takes eight years to build a team so we are already in the phase of preparation for Durban 2022.

"In order to succeed in Durban, we have to be given every opportunity to excel."

In the statement, Saha also apologised to the hockey community for the failure to get the teams to Rio.