If the traces of this sport date back to Antiquity, its modern form emerged in England in the 19th century. Field hockey has great teams in Yvelines. And the Department is proud to support hockey player Quitterie Le Naour in her “ChampYons 2024” system.

An ancient sport

Did you know? The word “hockey” comes from the French “hocquet”. which means shepherd’s hook, in reference to the shape of the butt.
Field hockey is, therefore, one of the Older ball and lacrosse games.. In the Middle Ages, the game was even banned for a time in England because it overshadowed another sport: archery, which was the country’s main means of defense at that time.
The roots of hockey go back to ancient times. would have been practiced 4,000 years ago in Egypt. According to historians and archaeologists, the Romans, Greeks and even the Aztecs played a form of the game several centuries before the Spanish arrived in the New World.
modern hockey It emerged in England in the mid-19th century. The first hockey federation was created in the United Kingdom in 1876 and established the first formal set of rules for the game.
Parity is an essential value within hockey: for 30 million hockey players around the world51% are women and 49% men.

Quitterie Le Naour, in the “ChampYons” system

Quitterie Le Naour, field hockey player, of the French team qualified for the Paris 2024 Games. Photo N.Dubois

There are several clubs in Yvelines: Maisons-Laffitte Hockey Club, Poissy Hockey Club, Racing Club de France and Saint-Germain Hockey Club.
The Versailles club, one of the oldest in France. Established on the Boulie de Versailles golf course since 1960, field hockey section Racing Club de France is one of the main hockey clubs in France.
For its part, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which has developed a field hockey culture, with a great team, frequently hosts important international competitions. It is in this prestigious club where 22-year-old Quitterie Le Naour plays. Student at Edhec Business School, He is in the French team, qualified for the Paris 2024 Games. She is one of the 15 high-level athletes supported by the Department of Yvelines, through the “ChampYons 2024” system.

Olympic sport since 1908

Hockey appears for the first time in Games of 1908, in London. He made his final entry into the Olympic program in 1928, in Amsterdam. Women entered the program in 1980, at the Moscow Games.
Due to its modern Anglo-Saxon origin, hockey is dominated by the countries and ancient members of the British Empire such as India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Great Britain. The Indian men’s team is the one with the greatest dominance in the Olympic record. In fact, India is an eight-time gold medalist.with six consecutive titles in the men’s tournament between 1928 and 1956. However, other nations – such as Argentina, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain and France – rose to the top of the world rankings, making this truly global sport.
At the Tokyo 2021 Games, Belgium in men and the Netherlands in women won gold.

The rules of the game

Speed, technicality, resistance, coordination. They are the main characteristics of hockey. A hockey game is being played. 11 against 11 and lasts 60 minutes. It consists of 4 periods of 15 minutes. The objective is to dominate a hard plastic ball and score more goals than the opposing team. Athletes use a hook-shaped stick, with which they propel, control and hit a hard ball. Only the flat side of the stick can be used.. With the exception of the goalkeeper, players cannot touch the ball with their hands or feet.

If at the beginning of this sport the grass was natural, this slowed down the game. synthetic grass was created to make the game faster and more modern. The pitch is also wet, which further accelerates the movement of the ball.
A hockey field is 91.4 m long and 55 m wide. The goals, located at each end, are surrounded by a D-shaped shooting zone. Goals can only be scored from within the opponent’s shooting zone.

Events in 2024 at the Yves-du-Manoir stadium (Colombes)

The Paris 2024 hockey tournaments will be held from July 27 to August 9.
The hockey tests will take place at the Yves-du-Manoir stadium in Colombes, in Hauts-de-Seine. This site is historic: it was the Olympic venue for the 1924 Paris Summer Games.
The works financed in part by the FS2i (the Interdepartmental Fund for Solidarity through Investment, created by the 7 departments of Ile-de-France) allowed it to reach environmental standards, in particular with a controlled carbon footprint and a reduction significant energy consumption.