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| Losers: Australia are defeated by Germany in the hockey test event at the Riverbank Arena in May |
Sport fans Down Under normally save the 'whingers' tag for their British
rivals but the Australian's men's hockey team are making a strong claim for
the label, with their latest complaint being directed towards the schedulers
of the Olympic hockey tournament.
Coach Ric Charlesworth has slammed London Olympic
schedulers for lumbering his team with three early starts in their
round-robin matches at the Games.
The 'Kookaburras' are favourites to win the gold medal in London but
Charlesworth said the schedule, released on Tuesday, was unfair and would be
disruptive to his top-seeded team.
"I don't expect special treatment, I expect not to be disadvantaged, out
of five matches you may expect one 5am start for our athletes not three,"
Charlesworth told Hockey Australia's
website.
"It interferes with momentum, as major finals won't be played at that
hour and it interrupts our routine over two weeks. Early games should be
fairly distributed between all teams."
While over the tournament, which runs from July 30 to Aug 11, Australia face
Spain, Argentina and Pakistan in matches starting at 8.30am local time,
second seeds and defending champions Germany play all their games later in
the day.
Charlesworth, who led the Australian women's team to gold at the Atlanta and
Sydney Olympics before taking over as coach of the Kookaburras in 2009, also
pointed to the fact that the top seeds in the women's tournament, the Dutch,
had no 8.30am starts.
"It's not that they are number one, again it's just that it's not equally shared when some teams have to play three early matches and others none," he said.
Meanwhile, Hockey Australia chief Mark Anderson reflected Charlesworth's dissatisfaction with the schedule.
"When you look at the schedule it is patently unfair in our opinion," he said. "None of the teams want to play in this early morning time slot.
"We have been scheduled to play at this time on three occasions. The world ranked number two, three and four teams do not have any matches scheduled for this time. The fifth and sixth ranked teams feature once.
"Out of the 12 teams in the competition, only six teams play at this time and Australia features three times. We are not looking for an unfair advantage, we just want to compete on a level playing field."
The criticisms are the latest in a growing list and come after the team played the test event at the Riverbank Arena on the Olympic Park and Charlesworth criticised the surface of the new pitch.
“The pitch is an issue: you make more mistakes than you would like and it brings down the standard of the game," he raged at the time, in early May, despite the fact that most of his key players had praised the surface.
"The ball bobbles a fair bit," he continued, "and it doesn’t reward skill. We have been playing on the one [blue pitch] in Perth for three months and it started off good and then it went bad and now it’s getting better.”
"It's not that they are number one, again it's just that it's not equally shared when some teams have to play three early matches and others none," he said.
Meanwhile, Hockey Australia chief Mark Anderson reflected Charlesworth's dissatisfaction with the schedule.
"When you look at the schedule it is patently unfair in our opinion," he said. "None of the teams want to play in this early morning time slot.
"We have been scheduled to play at this time on three occasions. The world ranked number two, three and four teams do not have any matches scheduled for this time. The fifth and sixth ranked teams feature once.
"Out of the 12 teams in the competition, only six teams play at this time and Australia features three times. We are not looking for an unfair advantage, we just want to compete on a level playing field."
The criticisms are the latest in a growing list and come after the team played the test event at the Riverbank Arena on the Olympic Park and Charlesworth criticised the surface of the new pitch.
“The pitch is an issue: you make more mistakes than you would like and it brings down the standard of the game," he raged at the time, in early May, despite the fact that most of his key players had praised the surface.
"The ball bobbles a fair bit," he continued, "and it doesn’t reward skill. We have been playing on the one [blue pitch] in Perth for three months and it started off good and then it went bad and now it’s getting better.”
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