England and Great Britain hockey player David Goodfield opened up on being forced to miss out on the 2024 Paris Olympics through injury.
Goodfield played in GB’s opening two games at the Olympics but was forced to pull out after a flare-up in a recurring back injury.
“That was one of the hardest situations I’ve found myself in.” Goodfield admitted looking back on the summer; “You spend all this time building up to it, and it was completely out of my control.”
Great Britain started their campaign with a doubleheader in Pool A in convincing style, thrashing Spain 4-0 and coming from behind to draw 2-2 with South Africa.
It was after this, though, that Goodfield was forced to pull out and was replaced by his former Surbiton teammate Tom Sorsby, with Goodfield admitting the doubleheader was “probably the worst thing that could have happened.”
Ahead of the Games, Goodfield revealed that was “probably only two or three weeks before, I had just had another injection in my back and it felt like it was in a reasonable place but maybe I didn’t have enough time to settle down.”
“It was pretty tough, but I tried to be as positive as I could around the group. I didn’t want them to feel that burden. I just wanted to help them as much as they could to make sure that we achieved our goals, which unfortunately we obviously didn’t.”
A draw against the Netherlands and a comeback win against France sealed a quarter-final place for Great Britain. They faced India in the quarter-final, which Goodfield admitted the squad were optimistic about.
“Absolutely zero disrespect to India, but if we could have chosen teams to play in that quarter-final, I think we could have felt quite confident picking them, just based off our previous results against them.
“Looking back at Olympic experience, that’s probably not the case because they’ve pipped us twice in the quarter-finals twice now. In the last three years, we’ve had a really good record against India, so we were going in with confidence.”
The quarter-final against India proved a fantastic game of hockey for the neutral after India’s Amit Rohidas was shown the red card after just 17 minutes. India had taken the lead before Lee Morton equalised for Great Britain.
A man down, but a goal in front! India lead Team GB in the men’s hockey quarter-final. #BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/dK1eGlp5Zd
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 4, 2024
The game went to a shootout after India’s goalkeeper PR Sreejesh produced some fantastic saves. Sreejesh saved one in the shootout and GB put one attempt wide, meaning India went through.
Goodfield admitted that whilst India had a great game, Great Britain should have done more. “To be fair to India, they pulled themselves together and had a hell of a game. Their goalkeeper in particular had a hell of a game.
“There was definitely still a part of us that felt that we didn’t quite execute on what we wanted to do. It was a combination of India having an amazing tournament and we just didn’t quite hit that peak.”
Goodfield has just had surgery on his back, which he admitted is his personal focus for this season. “I’m not in any kind of rush with rehab. I’ve written myself off until March, when the second half of the season starts.
“My personal goals are a bit different this year, sort my back out, bulletproof myself and rehab wisely. Then when it comes to March it’ll be trying to see out the second half of the season and pip Old Georgians to the trophy.”
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