It doesn’t get more dramatic than this – after a 0:2 deficit and a penalty stroke, Germany takes the lead. But with only seconds to go before the end of the match, defending champions Belgium scored the equalising goal. It all came down to the penalty shootouts. In the end, the German men’s hockey team won 5:4 and became world champions for the third time since 2002 and 2006 in Bhubaneswar, India. Goalkeeper Jean-Paul Danneberg, who had spent the last 60 minutes on the bench, blocked the deciding penalty during the nail-biting shootouts.
With this victory, the men’s team under national coach André Henning have proved themselves bonafide comeback kings: in the semi-final, the German team bounced back from a two-goal deficit against Australia, and had to do the same in the quarter final – clear evidence of the exceptional mental strength of the team – one that hockey fans around the country are proud of, says DHB President Henning Fastrich. We wholeheartedly agree! And are a little proud that the new world champions achieved their victory on a hockey turf from Polytan: our Poligras Platinum GT.
Poligras is the #1 synthetic hockey turf: eight Olympic Games and ten World Championships have been played on this turf. Both in Bhubaneswar and in Rourkela, Poligras Platinum GT was installed in the stadiums and the training pitches. The installation was completed by longstanding Polytan partner, Rajiv K. Sharma.
Poligras Platinum GT was originally developed for the Olympic Games in Rio, and is one of the most popular hockey turfs. It contains 20% organic polyethylene, which is sourced from natural sugar cane, instead of fossil fuels. GT stands for Green Technology.
This sustainable technology based on sugar cane was first used for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and has been used in Poligras and LigaTurf products ever since. The latest development in this technology is Poligras Paris GT zero, which will be used at the Olympic Games in Paris 2024 as the first ever climate-neutral hockey turf.
