TAKING PART

Among men, three of the 12 teams are made up of the top three finishers at the World Cup held in Sydney last year. Five more come from the top teams in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania, or the second-best team from any of those regions where a team has qualified at the World Cup. Australia, as host, gets automatic entry, but will not claim that right since it has qualified as Oceania's best team. The four remaining teams qualified in February at the Olympic qualifying tournament. Among women, the six teams include the top teams from Europe and the Americas, Australia, as host, and the three teams "selected" at the Olympic qualifying tournament in February. That tournament included an element of positive discrimination that sits oddly at the highest level of sport; any African or Asian team that finished in the top eight automatically gained a place at the Games, a move designed to help the sport to develop across the world.