{"id":374542,"date":"2024-03-10T03:04:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T04:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=374542"},"modified":"2024-03-10T06:03:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T06:03:39","slug":"aussie-greats-bullish-paris-call-incredible-career-hint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=374542","title":{"rendered":"Aussie great's bullish Paris call, incredible career hint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian hockey<\/a> champion\ufeff Eddie Ockenden has backed the Kookaburras<\/a> to win gold in Paris<\/a> and indicated that this year's Olympic<\/a> campaign might not be his last.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old Tasmanian will become the first Australian hockey player to feature at five Olympic Games when he runs out in Paris, 20 years after Jamie Dwyer's iconic goal at Athens 2004 lifted his country to glory.<\/p>\n

"We want to go and win a gold medal. I feel pretty fortunate\ufeff being able to say that we have a team that's good enough to go and win a gold medal. You're in a good space if you can believe that and say that and have the chance to do it," Ockenden told former Hockeyroo Georgie Parker on Nine's Wide World of Sports<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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"Our expectations are we're going to play a good team somewhere, and they're going to be very good, they're going to be at their best, they want to beat us and we're going to have to beat them on that day."<\/p>\n

The Kookaburras are ranked fifth in the world, behind the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and India.<\/p>\n

\ufeffBut in the ongoing International Hockey Federation Pro League season, the Kookaburras have defeated India three times and the Netherlands twice, proving they are capable of conquering all before them.<\/p>\n

\"Kookaburras<\/p>\n

Ockenden made his Kookaburras debut as a 19-year-old in 2006, before competing at his first Olympic Games in Beijing two years later.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Hobart product became the first Australian hockey player to chalk up 400 international matches.<\/p>\n

He suggested on Wide World of Sports<\/em> that he could still be wearing green and gold when the Kookaburras head to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.<\/p>\n

\ufeff"I don't know actually. I honestly haven't really thought about it too much.\ufeff You have to be realistic, it's not going to be forever, but I'm just going to see how it goes," Ockenden said.<\/p>\n

"If I'm good enough or if I'm playing well, if I'm still fast, if I'm still fit, if my body's still good, then we'll just see how it goes."<\/p>\n

While Olympic gold has proven elusive for Ockenden, he is a two-time World Cup winner and a four-time Commonwealth Games champion. He has also won World League\/Pro League titles with Australia on three occasions.<\/p>\n

"It is incredible to have been able to do this. I love doing what I do. I feel so lucky that I've been able to do it for so long. It's my absolute passion to play sport and play hockey and do things like this," Ockenden said.<\/p>\n

"I feel like it's gone really quickly, but I also feel really lucky that I've been able to. Every time I get to travel overseas with my best mates and play in a hotel room and then go and play hockey \u2014 it's the coolest thing ever. I still feel like that now."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian hockey champion\ufeff Eddie Ockenden has backed the Kookaburras to win gold in Paris and indicated that this year's Olympic campaign might not be his […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374545,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374542\/revisions\/374545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/374544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}