DUTCH DO IT THE HARD WAY
The Olympic men's hockey title, like the women's the previous night, was
retained by the holders but the Netherlands took a much more harrowing path
to the top of the rostrum than the Australian women.
As they had in their semi-final, the Dutch won the final on penalties under
the Olympic Park floodlights. They were held to a 3-3 draw by the finalists
South Korea and eventually won 5-4 on penalties, the same score they had against Australia
in their semi-final. They are the first country to retain the Olympic men's
hockey title since India in 1956, 44 years ago.
The decisive penalty was converted by Stephan Veen, the Dutch
captain, who earlier seemed to have sealed victory for his side. In his
farewell appearance, he scored a hat-trick in the match proper which gave
them a 3-1 lead. But in the last five minutes, the Koreans staged a dramatic
fight back to convert two penalty corners. Fifteen minutes sudden death
extra time produced only one shot for each team.
The Dutch success came despite failing to win their last three matches.
Apart from penalties in their last two drawn matches, they were beaten 2-0
by Pakistan in their final group match and had seemed to be out of the
semi-finals.
Last night Seong-tae Song scored his fifth goal of the tournament to give
Korea a ninth minute lead. Bram Lomans, the Dutch corner specialist, won the
Dutch a penalty stroke which Veen converted with aplomb. Two minutes into
the second half Veen added his second after smart work by Marten Eikelboom
and Teun de Nooiyer and the match seemed over when he nicked a third goal in
the 64th minute. The Dutch had had far more possession than their quick
breaking opponents.
In the last minutes, the Koreans did break quickly to force two penalty
corners, their first of the match, and converted both, Kyung-seok Kim and
their captain Keon-wook Kang scoring.
Seung-tae Song, the outstanding Korean forward, was the one player not to
score in the penalty competition, putting Korea's third penalty wide.
PAT ROWLEY
Sunday Times
