Charlesworth sees promise in gold-medal campaigns

AUSTRALIA’S hockey golden years are a distant memory, but legendary coach Ric Charlesworth believes ending a 17-year Olympic gold-medal drought in Tokyo is not impossible.

Australia’s men’s and women’s teams have battled a tumultuous five years that has been marred by scandal and a lack of top-level success.

Charlesworth (pictured) believes player development is at the core of Australia slipping back to the international pack, but feels the current teams – the men are ranked No.2 in the world and the women No.4 – are on the verge of ending championship droughts.

No one has enjoyed more success in hockey than Charlesworth, who twice steered the Hockeyroos to Olympic gold as coach and enjoyed memorable results with both men’s and women’s teams at Champions Trophy and World Cups.

“Can you do that again? Well it’s damn hard to sustainably win at that level,” Charlesworth said.

“If you look at the teams that win, it’s up and down.

“Every year there’s new teams contending. It’s intensely competitive at that level.

“For Australia to do well and dominate will be very hard, but to win things, yes we can do that.

“It’s intensely competitive, very hard to win at the Olympics, very hard to be a world champion.

“But in our game, yeah we’re good enough to win those things.”