Even the Queen could not watch – 10 years since Olympic hockey gold
By Katie Falkingham, BBC Sport Senior Journalist, and Katie Gornall, BBC Sport correspondent
It’s been a decade since Great Britain’s women hockey players secured history in the Rio 2016 Olympic final against the Netherlands. With nine million viewers watching on BBC, tension was palpable—even at Balmoral.
"I was sitting at dinner thinking ‘what’s going on?’ Someone kept whispering the score to me," recalls Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, a patron of England Hockey. "Her Majesty said, ‘oh for goodness sake, just go’. So I ran through to the library and I was watching it."
The Duchess further shares: "It was getting to the point when I was leaping up and screaming. The drawing room is right next door, and suddenly I was conscious of this presence. Her Majesty had come through and she was standing in the doorway. She watched the penalties—she couldn’t cope with the pressure, so she had to take herself away again."
Wednesday marks a decade since that historic victory, secured by penalty strikes from Helen Richardson-Walsh and Hollie Pearne-Webb after a thrilling final ended 3-3. On paper, Team GB weren’t supposed to win against the formidable Dutch side, Olympic champions in 2008, 2012, and aiming for their third title in a row as world’s number one.
But Team GB, including captain Kate Richardson-Walsh and head coach Danny Kerry, had an unspoken belief that this was their moment. Superstitions abounded: everyone sat in the same bus seat, Kerry wore the same washed pants for every match, and Sophie Bray kept her kit uncleaned throughout the tournament.
Helen Richardson-Walsh sensed victory while observing Dutch behavior before the game. "They were all cheering and jeering, doing things that they would never normally do," she remembers. "We were just looking straight ahead, steely-eyed. I remember thinking, ‘oh, we’ve got this’."
This gold marked Britain’s first since 1988, cementing the women’s team’s legacy in the sport.
