Townsend’s Olympic call

Susannah Townsend says her call-up to Teamgb’s hockey women’s squad for the Rio Olympics is the reward for four years of focused hard work. The 26-year-old Canterbury Ladies star was named on Tuesday as one of 16 players heading to Brazil at the end of July to complete a gruelling route to the Games. Townsend was one of several GB players who missed out on selection for the squad for London 2012 in the run-up to the home Games and she admitted: “I was devastated not to go last time but, coming through that has led to this. I am so happy. “It has been a lot of hard work over the past four years and I suppose this is reward for that. “There have been a lot of ups and downs in that time but in life you have people who carry on and some that don’t. I have always been one to carry on and here we are today.” Townsend vowed to take her selection in her stride, claiming to be ‘chilled about the whole thing.’ She added: “Life will go on as usual. We’re lucky as UK Sport-funded athletes that we have the structure in place and access to everything we need every day. “We’ll keep working hard, then we fly out there, have a warm-up game against Spain and then we’re into it.” Townsend revealed the pre-games GB holding camp would be on home soil at Bisham Abbey: “We have a heat chamber to help us acclimatise, the pitch in Rio is not at altitude and we train on the same surface here that we’ll play on there. “With the fact that the venue is 40 minutes from the village and the issue of all the teams being allocated slots to train on the pitch, it’s actually less hassle to just do our own thing here.” Townsend only took up hockey at secondary school when, in her own words: “I got too lonely playing tennis. “That was my first real sporting love. I wanted a team sport and ended up being put in goal for the first year.” Townsend helped England to claim silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and gold at the European Championships in 2015 and is aiming for more silverware this summer. She said: “We have a tough first pool game against Australia but we have played them so much this year both teams know each other so well. “We are going there to win. We believe we have the best group of players we have ever had going to a Games.” Townsend won her 100th cap in England’s Champions Trophy campaign last week which saw the home nation finish fifth in London.