FIH apologises for timer error in Birmingham 2022 women’s hockey semi-final

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) took cognisance of the shot-clock error during the Indian women’s hockey team’s semi-final against Australia at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games on August 5.

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The error, stemming from the conduct of the Technical Officials, led to Australia retaking their first attempt in the penalty shootout and scoring a goal when their original attempt had been intercepted by India captain and goalkeeper Savita Punia only for it to be deemed null and void as the timer hadn’t begun.

An official complaint relating to the conduct of the Technical Officials in the aforementioned semi-final was raised by the IOA on August 6 and was addressed to Gina Dowson, the Commonwealth Games Association Relations Manager.

In response, the IOA received an acknowledgement of the complaint later in the day from the International Hockey Federation (FIH), who has promised that “the incident will be thoroughly reviewed by the FIH in order to avoid any similar issues in the future”. In addition, the FIH has said that the governing body acknowledges "that the first penalty shoot-out last night started mistakenly too early (the clock on the scoreboard was not yet ready to operate), for which we sincerely apologise.”

Mr Rajesh Bhandari

Chef de Mission

Team India

Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games