Uruguay (women) and USA (men) will participate for the very first time in the FIH Hockey Nations Cup 2026. This follows the withdrawals of both Scotland (women) and Wales (men).

In our first edition in December, we invited you to vote on a name for this newsletter, and the results are in. You have officially named it Athlete Corner, and you can find the full breakdown of the vote later in this issue to see just how close it was.  We are back with our second edition, and there is a lot to cover. 

On the occasion of the first meeting of the FIH Executive Board this year, held in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, FIH President Tayyab Ikram met Princess Takamado and said: “I am very honoured to have met Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado. I congratulated her on the qualification of both the Japanese women’s and men’s national hockey teams for the upcoming FIH Hockey World Cup 2026, which will take place in Belgium and the Netherlands in August of this year. I also took this opportunity to present her with World Cup tickets.”