When the SA women’s hockey team hit the 2012 Olympic Games in July, two players in particular will be scrutinised for their performance – team captain Marsha Marescia and legend Pietie Coetzee, the world’s highest scorer in international field hockey.
The team qualified for the London Olympics with a 3-1 victory over India in the final of a tournament in New Delhi in February.
The SA team, sponsored by Investec, are ranked 12th in the world, and will play in Pool B against Argentina (No 2), Germany (No 3), New Zealand (No 6), Australia (No 7) and the USA (No 10) in the preliminary round of the Olympics.
They have several big warm-ups before then, playing five Test matches against Scotland in Glasgow at the end of next month, taking part in the Investec London Cup from June 5 to 10, playing two Tests against the Netherlands and then facing Germany, New Zealand and a third country still to be announced in the Four Nations tournament in Bremen, Germany, from July 12 to 15.
After their match against India, Marescia – who has played 281 international games for SA – was named Player of the Tournament in New Delhi, despite battling flu.
Coetzee’s international goal tally makes her legendary – at last count it was 234 goals in 239 Test matches. In June she broke Russian Natella Krasnikova’s world record of 220, which had stood for two decades, with a first-half hat-trick against the USA at the Champions Challenge in Dublin.
So who are these women with their jolly hockey sticks? For a start, they’re currently based in Holland, so they can play in the European leagues and practise 25 hours a week before the Olympics. In the past 18 months, they have played about 100 international matches, which has improved the team’s game enormously.
Pietie Coetzee
Coetzee, 33, has more than 200 international caps to her name. Born in Bloemfontein and schooled at Oranje Girls’ High, she played club hockey with Amsterdam in the Netherlands in the late 1990s, then, at only 16, made her international senior debut for the South African Women’s Team in 1995 against Spain in Atlanta.
She went on to represent her country at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics.
She is well known for her drag flick, arguably one of the fastest in the world.
Coetzee quit hockey after the Champions Challenge in 2005 to focus on her studies and her coaching career. She says she lost her motivation, “as hockey is not a professional sport in South Africa and I had to think of my future”.
However, she came out of retirement in 2010, hungrier than ever. Good thing, too, because last year she broke the world record for goals scored.
When the national coach asked her to return, she considered it for a while, then accepted. Coetzee admitted that it took lots of hard work to get back to international form. “At first I had to lose a lot of weight and get fitter. I had to do a lot of running,” she says, adding that her passion for the sport has returned. “I’m feeling great.”
As for Amsterdam, where she’s been since September, Coetzee says it’s “easy living”, though an adjustment. “You go around on a bike, and where I am, in De Pijp, it’s really vibey and crowded.”
She trains for two or three hours a day, then goes to the gym and runs. When she’s not flexing muscle, she’s watching video clips to check where she can improve her performance.
Coetzee loves cooking, but in Amsterdam “there is so much to do and see, I’m out all the time”, she says. “A downside of living in Holland, though, is the weather. An exceptional day is 16°C, and that’s with the sun shining. Most days, there’s no sun.”
When she returns to Jo, Coetzee will complete her studies in emergency medical care at the University of Johannesburg – she’s in her fourth year – and will take hockey coaching clinics at schools.
Despite speculation, she has no plans to hang up her boots yet, and neither has she discounted being at another Olympics.
About SA’s chances at this year’s Olympics, she says: “Judging by where we’re at, I think we have a good shot at eighth position. We’re not going to go for anything less than that.”
Marsha Marescia
Marescia, 29, has led the SA hockey team since 2006. A midfielder, she plays for the Rotterdam Hockey Club. This is her second season in Holland, her first being in 2008/09.
“Hockey is really competitive, so to stay high in the rankings you need a lot of international exposure. There are eight of us South Africans based here in the Netherlands at the moment,” she says.
A hockey player since she was just six, she was lured into the game by her mother, Marian, a hockey player and coach.
Born and raised in Durban, Marescia attended Northlands Girls’ High School, and has a BA in social science. She is our most capped hockey player, having represented SA at two Olympic Games, two World Cups and the Commonwealth Games.
It’s not for money that she pursues her game – hockey is an amateur sport in most countries, including SA, and players earn a fraction of what soccer or rugby players are paid – it’s the thrill of the sport, and of course, “sweet victory”. “Winning is part of my culture,” she laughs.
In Rotterdam, most of her days are spent training, either on the field or at gym. Hockey in Europe is highly competitive, which she enjoys – “it gives you an opportunity to focus on hockey as a career” – but she misses her friends and family back in Johannesburg, where she becomes a corporate animal.
“I was the brand manager for Glacéau Vitaminwater before I left,” she explains. She is also studying through Unisa for a BCom in marketing.
About the SA team’s prospects at the Olympics, shey says: “I think we’ll make it into the top eight. That’s a certainty, I think.”
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