The women’s EuroHockey U21 Championship II-B in Konya sees Türkiye, Scotland, Poland and Ukraine all vying for promotion and a possible World Cup spot.
Those are the prizes on offer from this event and the II-B event held in Rakovnik this week for the winner of this four-team event.
The format will see an initial round-robin group phase before the top two advance to the final from which those big rewards are up for grabs.
The hosts are looking to break new ground. They have been competing at Under-21 international level on the women’s side since 2014 with their best finish a seventh place in 2017 in the second tier.
If they can push for the final, it will represent a significant step forward to add a number of other recent Turkish breakthroughs.
Gamze Zor and Nur Baran were part of the Gaziantep Polisgücü team who reached the EuroHockey Club Trophy II final in May. Baran then joined another quartet from the Under-21 panel to play in the EuroHockey 5s in Walcz.
There, Gülcan Paksoy scored four goals and she is set to be one of the key Turkish players this week along with Sila Erkoç and Esma Idik.
They won the third division two years on home turf and they are hoping to make the best of that same advantage this week.
Scotland won this competition the last time it was held in Türkiye in 2019 before finishing in eighth place in the top tier in 2022 in Ghent.
Just Neave Halliday traverses this edition while eight of the panel are rising up from last summer’s Under-18 panel who finished seventh in Krefeld. Among them is Lexie MacMillan who top scored for the side along with Caterina Nelli who showed lots of fire in attack.
They also can draw on some top notch coaching experience with ex-international goalkeeper Amy Gibson and Scottish senior coach Chris Duncan supporting Jimmy Culnane.
The side is built around a wealth of players from the successful University of Edinburgh team with seven hailing from the club. A trio come from just over the border at University of Durham while Uddingston is the other well represented team with three players.
Polish champions KS Hokej Start Brzeziny provide a trio of players to the line-up while UKS SP5 Swarek Swarzędz is the home club for almost half of the side. Julia Kucharska is French-based with Douai Hockey Club.
Maria Drozda is a damgerous forward who shone on the Under-18 stage last year in Wales and has previously played both Euro U21 indoor and outdoor competitions.
Marta Czujewicz captains the team and will be looking to add to a memorable summer in which she won EuroHockey 5s gold in Walcz alongside Oliwia Krychniak.
Poland were third in the B division two years ago, a final day defeat at the hands of Italy denying them potential gold.
Ukraine finished in sixth place in Vienna in 2022 and are in the midst of an incredibly busy year of competitions.
For example, Veronika Movchan played in the Hockey5s World Cup in Oman and the Olympic qualifiers in Spain early in the year and she is now looking forward to her third Under-21 Euros having debuted in 2019.
Anastasiia Shyshyna was in Oman and Valencia as well but can add the EuroHockey Indoors in Berlin and the EuroHockey 5s in Walcz – winning silver last week – to her list of travels.
It has been some feat given the ongoing struggles in their country and they will hope to create more national pride on this stage this week.
