Dutch women win hockey World Cup for the seventh time
Celebrating victory. Photo: FIH
The Dutch women’s hockey team on Saturday won their seventh World Cup, beating Australia 2-0 in the final in The Hague.
The Netherlands were hot favourites to take the title when the competition started, and reached the final having scored 21 and conceded only one goal.
Playing in front of 15,000 people at a packed Kyocera stadium in The Hague, the Dutch women - who are current Olympic champions and ranked one in the world - dominated much of the match.
Maartje Paumen, twice voted best player in the world, is tournament top scorer with seven goals including four penalty corners. Paumen told Nos television after the match it is hard to be the favourite all the time. 'But I am so happy, so happy,' she said.
Earlier on Sunday, defending champions Argentina won bronze, beating Team USA 2-1 in the play-off for third and fourth place.
On Sunday, the Dutch men’s team take on Australia in their World Cup final.
Match report and video highlights
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Disqus
In  at , ,  defeated the Netherlands to win the  yesterday, and was defeated by the Netherlands in the  on Saturday. Never before have the same two countries played in both Hockey World Cup finals in a single year.


In the men's final, the , known as the Kookaburras and coached by , successfully defended the World Cup they won back in 2010 with a 6–1 win over the , which was playing in its first final since 1998. 

The Netherlands put the Kookaburras on the back foot when  scored the first goal. In five consecutive games in the series the Australians had scored their first goal in the first seven minutes. Australia's  equalised with a goal from a . Another goal by  gave the Kookaburras a 2–1 lead at the half time break. Four more goals in the second half, including one by 321-game veteran , put the result beyond doubt.

The story was very different in the women's competition, where the , known as the Hockeyroos, were the underdogs, having not made a final in the World Cup or the  since 2006. They made this final only after defeating the  in a semi-final  after a 2–2 draw in which the teams alternated goals, each Australian goal followed by a US goal by . Whereas, the Netherlands team had scored 21 goals in the tournament up to this point, while only conceding one, and had not been beaten by Australia since 1998. 

Netherlands captain  scored the first goal of the match from a , giving the Netherlands team their seventh Hockey World Cup win.  then made it 2–0.  Neither side was able to score in the second half, but it was not for want of trying, and Australian goal keeper  ended up with a total of eight saves.

 defeated the United States 2–1 in the women's bronze medal game.