Six Steinhoff Maties Hockey players played a part in the national hockey teams' victories at the African Championships in Randburg this past weekend.
Dylan Swanepoel, Daniel Bell, Pierre de Voux and Jacques le Roux played for the men’s team, while Illse Davids and Jade Mayne represented Maties in the women’s team.
The South African women’s team beat Ghana 3-0 in the final and the men got the better of arch-rival Egypt by winning the match 4-2.
By winning the tournament both South Africans teams met the International Hockey Federation's qualifying standards to participate in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
“The first few games were rather easy for us and we put together good performances to get high-scoring wins. We were building up to the final weekend throughout the whole week,” said Swanepoel.
“Our performance in the semi-final against Kenya was not very good, but we showed good character to get the win despite playing badly. The final was a very close game that got decided in the last 15 minutes. All six of the goals were scored in the final chukka. We are very happy to have beaten Egypt as we lost to them in Cape Town earlier this year.
"We have completed our task of qualifying for Rio, it is now up to SASCOC to decide whether to send us or not.”
