The Ireland men's hockey team have secured their place at the 2024 Olympics after victory over South Korea in Valencia.
Defeat to Spain on Friday left Mark Tumilty's side with a last-chance play-off match against the South Koreans, with the winners guaranteed a spot in Paris.
The afternoon started brightly for Ireland, as goals from Matthew Nelson and Ben Johnson had them 2-0 up with just under 20 minutes played.
South Korea pulled one back on 23 minutes but it only took two minutes for John McKee to restore the two-goal deficit. On the stroke of half-time, the gap was back to one again, after Junwoo Jeong found the net to make it Ireland 3-2 South Korea 2 at half-time.
The Ireland men's hockey team are going to the Olympics!
They sealed their qualification for Paris with a thrilling 4-3 win over South Korea in Valencia on Sunday afternoon
Congratulations to the Irish team ☘pic.twitter.com/iPZcEFsWhQ— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) January 21, 2024
Ireland men's hockey team qualify for Olympics
Each side notched another goal each in the third quarter before a nerve-jangling final quarter that saw Korea's Nam Yong Lee sent to the sin bin after an altercation with Peter McKibbin.
The score would remain 4-3 to Ireland and the final whistle was met with joyous scenes among players, staff and the many in green who were in attendance.
It is the first time that the Ireland men's team have qualified for the Olympics since 2016 in Rio, when they finished an overall 10th out of 12 nations, with a 4-2 win over Canada being their only victory out of five group matches.
The men's hockey competition at the Paris Olympics will see the 12 qualified teams divided into two groups of six, with each group taking a round-robin format.
The top four teams from each group will advance to the quarter-finals of the competition.
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The joy of the men's team is in stark contrast to Ireland's women's side, who saw their own Olympic dream end with a 2-1 defeat to Great Britain in their third/fourth-place play-off on Saturday.
