China, Germany to host Champions hockey

The executive board of the International Hockey Federation has awarded the 2002 women's and men's Champions Trophies to the Chinese Hockey Association and German Hockey Association (Deutscher Hockey Bund) respectively.

The women's event will take place in Macau, China, from August 23 to September 1, 2002, while the men's will be held in Cologne from August 30 to September 8, 2002. The event was scheduled to take place in Belgium, but the Royal Belgian Hockey Association was forced to withdraw as host organiser for financial reasons.

It will only be the second time that China hosts a major hockey event, following Beijing's hosting of the Asian Games in 1990. Accordingly, their hosting of the 2002 women's Champions Trophy is viewed as an important development step for hockey towards the 2008 Olympics, recently awarded to Beijing. The Chinese women's hockey team has recently enjoyed success, beating Korea in the final to win the Korean Telecom Cup, held in Seongnam, Seoul, this month.

Current European men's champions Germany will be looking to complete a home hat-trick of wins, having won the men's Champions Trophy on the two previous occasions that it has hosted the event, in 1991 and 1995. They have won the Champions Trophy a record seven times, joint with Australia. Germany recently beat Holland, Korea and Pakistan to win the Panasonic Cup, held in Hamburg in June this year.

Both China and Germany achieved fifth place at the Sydney Olympics.