Australia to Play South Korea for Gold

A corner goal by Eun-jung Chang earned South Korea a 1-0 victory over Germany on Tuesday morning, but the Koreans had to wait all day to learn if their narrow victory was enough to get into the women’s field hockey final.

It was.

Jenny Morris flicked in a corner shot to put Australia ahead in the 45th minute, and Danni Roche, Michelle Andrews and Alyson Annan added goals in a 4-0 victory over the Netherlands.

The Dutch women had to beat Australia by five goals to qualify for the finals.

Australia finished the round-robin section with 13 out of a possible 14 points, three points ahead of South Korea and five ahead of Britain and the Netherlands.

The Australia-South Korea final will be the second between the countries in the last three Olympics. Australia beat the Koreans, 2-0, in the 1988 final at Seoul.

The finalists drew, 3-3, in their preliminary game in Atlanta, the only match Australia failed to win.

Chang’s winner against Germany made the 25-year-old telecommunications worker joint top scorer in an Olympic tournament with eight.

Earlier in the day, Britain clinched a bronze playoff place with its biggest win, a 5-0 drubbing of Argentina, the 1994 World Cup finalists. The Brits meet Netherlands for the bronze medal.

In a game that had nothing to do with medal play, the United States used goals by Marcia Pankrantz and Liz Tchou to beat Spain, 2-0, for fifth place.

It was a disappointing finish for a team that had expected to earn the first U.S. hockey medal since the women’s bronze in 1984, but instead turned out to be the first host nation to fail to medal in the women’s tournament.

The victory clinched one thing for the U.S. team (2-3-2)--a spot in next year’s Champions Trophy tournament, limited to the top six teams in the world.