Host country United Kingdom Dates 29 July – 10 August | City London Teams 12 | |
 | ||
Champions Netherlands (3rd title) | ||
The women's field hockey tournament at the 2012 Summer Olympics was the 9th edition of the field hockey event for women at the Summer Olympic Games. It was held over a thirteen-day period beginning on 29 July, and culminating with the medal finals on 10 August. All games were played at the Riverbank Arena within the Olympic Park in London, United Kingdom.
Contents
Defending champions the Netherlands won the gold medal for the third time after defeating Argentina 2–0 in the final. Great Britain won the bronze medal by defeating New Zealand 3–1.
Competition format
The twelve teams in the tournament were divided into two pools of six, with each team initially playing round-robin games within their pool. Following the completion of the round-robin, the top two teams from each pool advance to the semi-finals. All other teams play classification matches to determine the final tournament rankings. The two semi-final winners meet for the gold medal match, while the semi-final losers play in the bronze medal match.
Qualification
Each of the continental champions from five federations and host received an automatic berth. The European, Asian and Oceanian federations received one extra quota based upon the FIH World Rankings at the completion of the 2010 World Cup. In addition to the three teams qualifying through the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, the following twelve teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings, competed in this tournament.
^1 – South Africa won the African qualifier tournament but gave up their automatic berth on the premise that they should play a qualifier having deemed the African tournament as sub-standard. Eventually they won the Qualification Tournament 1. Instead, Argentina was invited as the highest ranked team not already qualified after the conclusion of the continental championships.Umpires
The FIH announced the list of umpires on 3 January 2012:
Results
All times are British Summer Time (UTC+01:00)''
First round
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Goals scored; 4) Head-to-head result.
Pool A
Advanced to semifinals
Pool B
Advanced to semifinals