The Black Sticks men are approaching one of their toughest Olympic campaigns, where they’ll compete in a pool with all three Tokyo Olympic medallists.
India, Australia, Belgium, Argentina, and Ireland — some would call it ‘the pool of death’, but the national men’s team sees it differently.
"Yeah, throw some punches, I think," head coach Greg Nicol said.
"The boys are confident, and when we're on, we can beat anyone. It doesn't matter whether they're bronze medallists, silver medallists, or gold medallists.
"I think this is going to be one of the most open Olympics we've ever seen before."
That confidence is crucial for this team, which has experienced its fair share of disappointments at the Olympics.
The Rio 2016 Olympics saw the Black Sticks on the verge of a huge upset victory over Germany in the quarter-finals. But in the final minute, the Germans managed to pull the match back and send the Kiwis packing and out of the tournament.
At the Tokyo Olympics, they didn’t make it out of the pool stages.
The team are looking to learn from those past experiences and use them as fuel to get out of the group stage this time.
“It’s all about the one percenters," said Nicol.
"We've done all the grunt work and core stuff; it's just the little one-percenters that get you over the line.”
The Black Sticks are walking with new confidence in these games; their opening match is against India, which they’ve had previous success with when they knocked them out of their home World Cup in India last year.
“We're putting a lot of focus on India," said Captain Nic Woods.
"We know we need the points against them which will help us go through a little easier.”
But the most exciting matchup is against Belgium, the reigning Olympic Champions. In 2021, former Black Sticks coach Shane McLeod led them to glory in Tokyo, and now he’s back in Paris and hoping to replicate that success.
“He's a tactician," Woods said, "and he likes to play chess".
"We can learn from that, and maybe we'll play a bit of 4D chess, he laughs. We will see how we go!”
There’s plenty on the line this Olympic Games, not only hoping to bring back the country’s first hockey medal in almost 50 years but also send off Black Sticks veterans Hugo Inglis and Simon Child on a high. The pair confirming the Paris Olympic Games will be their last in the black singlet.
“I’m just looking at it with a different lens, my last Olympic games, so just enjoying every day and enjoying being in this environment," said Child.
“We want to send these guys off in an amazing way," said Woods.
"But also do it for our nation; it’s a nation full of hockey players who have gone through a long, long, long drought, so doing it for them would be fantastic.”
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