Jon Wyatt (OLY) on the ‘brilliant’ Paris 2024 hockey tournament

The FIH Sport & Sustainability Director and Olympian relives the Olympic energy, action and looks ahead to its impact on the game

Jon Wyatt OLY is a former England and Great Britain field hockey player and captain of both national teams. He represented Great Britain at two Olympic Games (Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000), earning a reputation as a skilled and strategic defender. Following his playing career, Jon built a successful career in sports marketing and consulting before moving to Switzerland to work at the International Hockey Federation (FIH), playing a key role in developing and promoting the sport he loves.

How was your experience at Paris 2024, as both an FIH Director and a fan of hockey?

It was simply brilliant. Having fans back in the stadiums for Paris 2024 gave the event that electric Olympic energy that everyone—athletes, fans, organizers—had missed. Tokyo was unique in its own way, but without live fans, it just wasn’t the same. In Paris, we had sold-out crowds for every session. The fact that it happened in France, where hockey isn’t a dominant sport, made it even more special.

And being in Europe, surrounded by hockey nations like the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Great Britain, meant fans traveled in big numbers. Even so, over half the tickets were sold to French spectators, which speaks volumes about the growing appeal of the sport in a country that prior to the Games had only 12,000 registered hockey players. Beyond the matches, we had this incredible sport initiation area where over 25,000 people—most of them kids—had a go at hockey. It's the kind of legacy we’re looking to build on.

What was the vision behind the sport initiation sessions?

The idea was simple: let people who may have never picked up a hockey stick feel the excitement of the sport. We knew many would be seeing hockey for the first time at the Olympics, so we invited them to come and experience it first-hand. We had kids putting on goalkeeping gear just for fun, posing for pictures, looking like superheroes in their padded kits. It was a massive success. Most of the participants were under 16, which is perfect because it’s about inspiring the next generation. We’ll definitely look to expand on this when we head to Los Angeles in 2028.

“Our goal is to eventually have elite turfs that require no water at all. It’s a challenging process because we need to maintain the performance level for our elite athletes, but we’re making steady progress.”

The goalkeeping was a standout feature in Paris. Has there been a shift in defensive strategies that contributed to the relatively low number of goals?

Absolutely, and there’s been a real narrowing of the gap between the top and lower-ranked teams, which made for more tightly contested matches. As a result, we saw a 25% drop in goals in the men’s competition compared to Tokyo 2020. Deep defense has become much more organized, and penalty corner defense, in particular, has reached a new level. Where teams used to score one in three or four penalty corners, now we’re seeing success rates drop to one in five, even one in six. It’s not just the outfield defense that’s improved—goalkeepers have also raised their game significantly.

The shootouts were another testament to this. Both the men’s and women’s finals went to shootouts, which has never happened before, but even more telling was how the goalkeepers were the stars. Instead of attackers converting 80% of their chances, we saw goalkeepers dominating, with shootouts being won 3-2 or even 3-1. In the men’s final, the first four shootouts were all saved. I can’t recall that happening at this elite level before.

We’ve also seen a rise in aerial passes during competition. Can you shed some light on this trend?

That’s been a developing part of the game, with defense becoming so tough to break down on the ground, so teams have turned to the air as a way to bypass defenders. The athleticism and defensive skills are so high now that it's often more effective to send the ball over the defense rather than through it.

The aerial pass used to be more of a tactic to relieve pressure, but now, it's a powerful offensive tool. One of the best examples was in the women’s competition when Germany’s captain, Nike Lorenz, made an incredible aerial pass, setting up a crucial penalty stroke. It's a technique we’re seeing used by both men and women, and it demonstrates the evolution of the game.

The skills on display at Paris 2024 were breath-taking. How have you seen the game evolve since your own Olympic playing days?

The 3D skills, where players deliberately lift the ball off the ground to maneuver it mid-air, have become commonplace. Back when I was playing, if the ball came off the surface, it was often accidental. Now, lifting the ball is a deliberate, well-practiced tactic. It’s harder for defenders to tackle when the ball is off the ground, so attackers use that to their advantage.

And it’s not just the big aerial passes that impress; it’s the intricate ball-handling skills in close quarters. A player might touch the ball 10 to 15 times in just a few meters, constantly shifting its position to outmaneuver a defender. The level of hand-eye coordination, athleticism, speed, and decision-making on display is phenomenal.

FIH has been increasingly focused on sustainability in recent years. How did that factor into the Paris 2024 Games?

Sustainability is a major priority for us, as it is for all of society, and we’re taking a broad approach—looking not just at environmental sustainability but also social aspects, like gender parity and inclusiveness. Hockey is one of the few sports where we have equal participation from men and women globally, and we reflected that in our umpiring at these Olympics, where we had mixed-gender officiating teams for both men’s and women’s matches.

Environmentally, we have worked closely with our supplier, Sport Group and Polytan, on this area for many years and it was fantastic that the turf (Poligras Paris GT zero) used at the Games was carbon-neutral, which was a first for us. We've also been making strides in reducing the amount of water required for elite-level pitches. Between Rio and Tokyo, we cut water usage by 40%, and we continued to make improvements for Paris. Our goal is to eventually have elite turfs that require no water at all. It’s a challenging process because we need to maintain the performance level for our elite athletes, but we’re making steady progress.

How close do you think we are to completely dry surfaces for elite hockey?

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly, but we’re getting closer. If you look at all artificial turfs that are used for hockey around the world, there are more turfs that don't use water than there are that do use water, but for the elite-level tournaments, the performance has to be as close to perfect as can be achieved. We're talking about fine-tuning small details to make sure the fast, skillful game we all love doesn’t suffer.

At the beginning of this year, we played our first FIH international level tournament, the Hockey 5s World Cup on a dry turf over in Oman. So it's already happening. And the question really is at what point the performance of the dry turf becomes acceptable at the very top level.

I’m confident we’ll see elite hockey competitions played on dry surfaces soon, but in the meantime, we’ll keep refining the technology to balance sustainability with maintaining the sport's excitement and pace.

Finally, what keeps your passion for hockey alive after all these years?

It’s the skill and technical prowess of the athletes. The physicality and athleticism are also amazing—I’m talking about athletes throwing an aerial pass more than 50m to a teammate who doesn’t even need to break stride and then they control this ball, which is less than 10cm in diameter, with a piece of equipment that is about a meter in length. And the piece of the hockey stick that they can actually use to control it is probably, again, only about 7cm wide. And they hardly ever miss that ball, which in some cases is going at 100km an hour—some of those technical skills done at high speed are just unbelievably impressive. These skills take years to master, but the payoff is immense. Watching players at the top level with such incredible technical ability—it’s just a joy.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games hockey competition took place on Poligras Paris GT zero turf from July 27th to 9th August.

Poligras is available globally through Polytan in EMEA, Asia Pacific and Australasia, and AstroTurf in North and South America as well as our global installer network.

InterviewLuc Identity23 September 2024Trusted & Chosen, Olympics, Poligras Paris GT zero