NICOLA WHITE says the relief has been palpable after the former Saddleworth Hockey Club player helped Great Britain qualify for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“It had been a stressful few months, but we can now relax and not have to worry about qualification anymore,” explained the 27-year-old.
Great Britain booked their passage to Brazil after winning the World League semi-final tournament in Valencia, Spain, where three Olympic spots were up for grabs.
Had Great Britain not qualified in Spain, they would have had one last chance to book their place at August’s European Championships which is being held in London and which they would have had to have won.
But Nicola and her team mates accomplished their Olympic goal in Spain where they won all seven of their games.
They defeated hosts Spain, Argentina, Canada and China in their pool, South Africa in the last eight, Germany in the semis and China again in the gold medal match.
Nicola, who started in six of the seven matches, said: “The target was to finish in the top three to book our Olympics place, but to win the competition was the icing on the cake.
“Obviously we were a bit nervy going into the competition with so much at stake, but I really enjoyed it and we had a great time.
“We had trained really well going into the tournament and it was great to see the hard work pay off as we took our chances.”
Nicola, whose grandmother lives in Dobcross, admitted they overcame a number of potential banana skins en route to their success.
“We hardly ever beat Argentina (this was their first win against them since 1996) and don’t have a good record against Germany,” she explained.
Great Britain becomes England for Nicola at next month’s European Championships which are being held at the 2012 Olympic venue in London between August 21/30.
Nicola said: “It is great to be hosting the tournament and good to be back in London at our legacy venue.
“It is going to be a really good event with the Netherlands favourites so it would be good for England to play them in the final.
“The great thing is that the pressure is off and we can go out and enjoy the Europeans as nothing is riding on them as we have booked our Olympic place.”
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