The 2001 Women's Hockey Intercontinental Cup was the sixth edition of the women's field hockey tournament. The event was held from 17–30 September, across two host cities, Abbeville and Amiens in France.[1]
England won the tournament for the first time after defeating Russia 4–0 in the final. Ukraine finished in third place, defeating Japan 4–3 in penalties following a 1–1 draw.[2]
The tournament served as a qualifier for the 2002 FIH World Cup in Perth, with the top six teams qualifying automatically. The seventh placed team qualified to the three–match playoff series held in Cannock, which was to be played against the United States.
Qualification
All five confederations received quotas for teams to participate allocated by the International Hockey Federation based upon the FIH World Rankings. Those teams participated at their respective continental championships but could not qualify through it, and they received the chance to qualify through this tournament based on the final ranking at each competition.
The match finished 2–2 and Lithuania won the subsequent penalty shoot-out 6–5. However Ireland captain, Rachel Kohler, spotted that the penalty strokes were being taken in the wrong order. She was initially ignored by the match officials, but Ireland appealed and the tournament director ruled the shoot-out should be replayed the next day. However Lithuania refused to take part and withdrew from the tournament.[4][5][6][7]
After Ireland defeated Scotland 2–1 in this match they were initially confirmed as the final qualifier for the 2002 Women's Hockey World Cup. Before the match the Lithuania team staged a sit down protest on the pitch.[9] Lithuania lodged a further appeal to the FIH who then ordered that Ireland, Lithuania, India and the United States take part in a second qualification tournament. Lithuania were due to play India in a seventh and eighth place play-off before they withdrew. The United States had been unable to participate in the original tournament due to the disruption of airline schedules after the 11 September attacks.[10][6][7][11][12][13] However Ireland in turn appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport who overruled the FIH decision and finally confirmed Ireland's place in the 2002 Women's Hockey World Cup.[14]
As per statistical convention in field hockey, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.
