Alyson Annan about her Chinese women's team

I love it when a plan comes together... said both Hannibal from the A-team and Alyson from China

Without a doubt the women from China were the suprise in these Paris Games. Until 4 minutes before the final whistle they were leading the Dutch in an Olympic final. I doubt you will find anyone who would be been so bold as to predict this.

Sure, there have been other teams showing you can make the mighty Dutch doubt…

Sure, China has been investing a lot into hockey with the team in full time mode and travelling for weeks and months all over the world to prepare against the tougher opponents.

Still it was an extraordinary performance… from the team, players and coaching staff together. Two years before Paris the team was ranked around the 15th spot in the global ranking. One year before they were closing in on the top 10. At the start of the Games, they were 8th in the ranking. And at the final whistle in Paris they were 6th in the world, but even more importantly… silver medallists at the Olympics.

Listen to the story of Alyson Annan and her Chinese women’s team in this interesting interview by CGTN, the China Global Television Network.

And by the way… you just gotta love the global reach of our sport when an Argentinean coach, living in Australia, shared this interview with a Dutch hockeyfan living in Belgium about an Australian coach leading the Chinese women to a silver medal in Paris, France 😉 … so I can share it here with all of you.

It all went according to our plans

Alyson Annan:

We knew the pool would be very difficult. We knew we had to win against Japan and France to make the quarter finals. We knew we would probably finish third or fourth in our pool. Which meant we knew we would play Argentina or Australia. We set our money more on Australia than Argentina… and that happened. We went to Australia for almost two months to prepare for this. So it kind of all went according to our plans.

And about the confidence that grew in her players:

Confidence comes from knowledge. And they gained a lot of knowledge throughout the last two years of their own performance, their own strenghts. (…) Winning games in the last two years gives confidence. And it was a bit of a change in mindset to our players because we constantly told them what they were good at. (…) This is what you’re good at. Do that! Individually and as a team. (…) The biggest thing that gave them confidence is that they gained so much more knowledge of their own game… individually and as a team… So they knew what they were doing. Tactically they were very sound.

About the players doing their own video analysis:

It’s different being given information than gaining it yourself! (…) That’s such an increase in knowledge.

Listen to the full interview to learn about how teaching the players how to swim and may other elements all had their impact on the performace in Paris.