Zimbabwe women’s national field hockey team at the 1980 Summer Olympics

The 1980 Zimbabwe women’s national field hockey team won the gold medal in women’s field hockey at that year’s Summer Olympics in Moscow. The gold medal was the country’s first Olympic medal of any colour. Moscow marked the southern African nation’s return to the Olympics after 16 years; as Rhodesia it had been excluded from the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Games for political reasons.

About Zimbabwe women’s national field hockey team at the 1980 Summer Olympics in brief

The 1980 Zimbabwe women’s national field hockey team won the gold medal in women’s field hockey at that year’s Summer Olympics in Moscow. The squad of 16 women, all from Zimbabwe’s white minority, was assembled less than a month before the Olympics began to help fill the gaps the American-led Olympic boycott created in the women’s hockey competition. Zimbabwe’s subsequent victory in the round-robin tournament with three wins and two draws was regarded as a huge upset, particularly considering the team’s lack of preparation and experience. After beating Poland and the USSR and drawing with Czechoslovakia and India, the Zimbabweans won the competition on the final day with a 4–1 victory over Austria. The gold medal was the country’s first Olympic medal of any colour. Moscow marked the southern African nation’s return to the Olympics after 16 years; as Rhodesia it had been excluded from the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Games for political reasons following the mostly white government’s declaration of independence from Britain in 1965. Zimbabwe did not win another Olympic medal until 2004. The 1980 Olympics were first to feature women’s ice hockey, and the first to include Zimbabwe under that name.

All matches were played at the Dynamo Arena, in the capital of the Soviet Union. All of these teams were competing as a result of the boycott, having failed to qualify for the Games. The matches were all played on artificial turf, which none of the Zimbabwean team members had ever seen; they had also never played together until that month. All players and official were white. Entirely amateur, the team mostly comprised players with professions unrelated to sport. Several had sporting relatives, most prominently Anthea Stewart, whose brother was the international cricketer Duncan Fletcher. The team included twin sisters in Sandy Chick and Sonia Robertson, who had played for South Africa 25 times before retiring in 1974, and Audrey Palmer, a seasoned hockey official and referee who played for Rhodesia from 1953 to 1961. At 35 years old, Stewart was the team’s oldest player, while Arlene Boxall, the 18-year-old reserve goalkeeper, was the youngest. At 18, Grant was the only other team member with international experience was made vice-captain. The squad left on 7 July, travelling first to the Zambian capital Lusaka and then to Luanda in Angola.