UNDERWATER HOCKEY: M’SIA TO USE WORLD AGE GROUP MEET TO PICK PLAYERS FOR ASIAN TOURNEY

KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 (Bernama) -- The eight-day CMAS Underwater Hockey Age Group World Championships 2024, which begins tomorrow at Arena Sports in Setapak here, will be the best platform to select players for next month's Asian Underwater Hockey Cup in Singapore.

National underwater hockey head coach Teah Jian Zhuan feels that the world age-group tournament will provide a stern test for his players, with some having just joined the national team about a year ago.

"Our team is still new, so we are taking this meet as preparation for the Singapore tournament (which offers) ranking points. Since we are still a new team, we don't have enough Under-19 players and (only those selected) will head to Singapore because there are three categories - men’s elite, women’s elite and Under-19.

"(We began) assembling (team Malaysia) one year ago for training and hope we can learn as much as possible. World-class teams like France, New Zealand and Turkiye are among our challengers as they have won the previous editions,” he told reporters at the launching of the championships at Arena Sports today.

Malaysia Underwater Hockey Association (MUHA) president Roshan Babu Balakrishnan said yesterday that the age-group championships will see about 525 athletes from 11 countries, including Malaysia, battling it out for supremacy. 

The 11 teams competing in the sixth edition of the CMAS Underwater Hockey Age Group World Championships from July 20-27 are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Turkiye, Poland, South Africa and Malaysia.

The championships will have four categories, men's Under-24, women's Under-24, Men's Under-19 and Women's Under-19.

The Asian Underwater Hockey Cup in Singapore will be from Aug 8-11.

-- BERNAMA