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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 capital of the Soviet Union. 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; it has been called an "irresistible fairy story". Won at a time of great political transition in Zimbabwe, the gold medal was the country's first Olympic medal of any colour. The 1980 Olympics were first to feature women's hockey, and the first to include Zimbabwe under that name—barred from the last three Olympics for political reasons, the country had last competed as Rhodesia in 1964. The women's hockey matches, held between 25 and 31 July, 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. 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. Dubbed the "Golden Girls" by the media of Zimbabwe, they were met by cheering crowds on their return home, and were briefly national celebrities. Zimbabwe did not win another Olympic medal until 2004. ==Invitation and team selection== The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, were the first to include a competition in women's field hockey. Pre-tournament favourites included Australia, the Netherlands and West Germany, but the American-led Western boycott of the Moscow Olympics led to these teams and others withdrawing, leaving only the Soviets in the women's hockey event. The Soviet and international Olympic authorities filled the gaps by inviting teams from countries that had not qualified. Among the nations invited was Zimbabwe, which had become an internationally recognised country in April 1980 following seven years of civil war. 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. The Zimbabwe Olympic Committee received the invitation to send men's and women's hockey squads to Moscow on 14 June 1980, 35 days before the Olympics were due to start. They were taken totally by surprise—they had not prepared hockey teams for the Games—but nevertheless agreed to send a women's squad. No women's hockey team representing the country had ever played overseas before. A squad of 16 members, built around the core of the former Rhodesia team, was hastily assembled by Liz Dreyer, the president of the national women's hockey association, who became the team's manager. Every player and official was white. Ann Grant, the team's 25-year-old sweeper, was appointed captain. Anthea Stewart, who had played for South Africa 25 times before retiring in 1974, both coached the squad and played herself. Liz Chase, the only other team member with international experience (having also represented South Africa) was made vice-captain. At 35 years old, Stewart was the team's oldest player, while Arlene Boxall, the 18-year-old reserve goalkeeper, was the youngest. The squad included twin sisters in Sandy Chick and Sonia Robertson. Entirely amateur, the team mostly comprised players with professions unrelated to sport—Grant, for example, was a bookkeeper, while Boxall was an operations clerk in the Air Force of Zimbabwe. Several had sporting relatives, most prominently Grant, whose brother was the international cricketer Duncan Fletcher. Audrey Palmer, a seasoned hockey official and referee who had played for Rhodesia from 1953 to 1961, travelled with the team as a medic, trainer and general supervisor. The squad left on 7 July, travelling first to the Zambian capital Lusaka and then to Luanda in Angola, from where they flew to Moscow on an aircraft usually used for freighting meat. "The stench was terrible", Grant later said. "There were no seats, so we all sat on the floor, strapped in and set off into the unknown. We didn't even have the right shoes to play on the artificial hockey surface." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Zimbabwe women's national field hockey team at the 1980 Summer Olympics」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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