GB women’s hockey earn first win of Paris Olympics

Hannah French scored the winning goal as Great Britain boosted their chances of progression at the Paris Olympics with a 2-1 victory over South Africa.

French’s third-quarter strike gave Team GB their first win of the women’s tournament at Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, following defeats by Spain and Australia that had put them bottom of Pool B.

South Africa opened the scoring inside six minutes when Kayla de Waal nudged the ball in after a penalty corner.

But a fine strike from Olympic debutant Amy Costello, in a penalty corner move straight off the training pitch, brought GB level before half-time.

Moments after hitting the post, French took her chance at the second time of asking. After beautifully controlling a lifted pass, she struck the ball hard past South Africa goalkeeper Anelle Lloyd.

“Back-to-back losses sucked the air a little bit out of us, but it’s tournament hockey, we’ve still got two more games to go so it was thinking forward rather than looking back,” said Scot Costello.

“In Tokyo the girls lost two in the pool and still came out and got a bronze medal. We’ve still got potential to win two more games, so always forward-focused.”

French added: “Today was all about the three points, so I was thankful to see [her goal] go in the back of the net, it doesn’t matter who scores it.”

The win moves GB up the pool standings into fourth, with Australia and the United States still to play on Wednesday. Only the top four from each pool of six will progress to the quarter-finals.

GB face the United States on Thursday in their penultimate pool match, before taking on Argentina on Saturday.

They have won a medal at the past three Olympics, including that memorable gold in Rio eight years ago, sandwiched by bronzes in both London and Tokyo.