SUNDAY – 19 July -

Regardless of the result of the Champions Trophy final between defending champions Argentina and hosts Australia on Sunday, two records are set to be broken.

Umpire Marelize de KLERK [RSA] will oversee her sixth Champions Trophy final, more than any other umpire in the tournament’s 14 year history. Meanwhile, Argentina captain Luciana AYMAR [ARG] is also scheduled to make her 66th appearance in a Champions Trophy match, beating Maria Magdalena AICEGO [ARG]’s record.

“It’s exciting,” de KLERK said. “I think any final, any opportunity to umpire big teams is exciting. It’s a privilege and an honour.” Although championship matches carry that extra bit of pressure, de KLERK says she doesn’t treat the match any differently. “I go through the same ritual in preparation for every game; it doesn’t matter which one it is,” she said. “As an umpire you want to go out there and make sure it’s fair and protect the players. The most important thing is that we all enjoy it.”

She said this elevated level of enjoyment during the final matches makes its way down from the stands to the pitch. “It’s a nice feeling to walk out there and know it’s a final,” she said. “It’s got a lot to do with the players and the crowd and the whole atmosphere.” De KLERK said that the tournament has changed since her first turn as finals umpire in the 1999 Women’s Hockey Champions Trophy final in Brisbane, Australia. “All these rule changes and the way athletes prepare today makes for bigger, more exciting hockey,” she said.

Today' s final marks Marelize de Klerk's (RSA) 6th Champion's Trophy Final appointment as an umpire.

Starting in 
 

1.	1999 in Brisbane where she umpired the final with Ute Conen AUS v NED
2.	2000 in Amstelveen where she umpired the final with Judith Barnesby NED v GER
3.	2005 in Canberra where she umpired with Ute Conen AUS v NED
4.	2007 in Quilmes where she umpired with Lisa Roach NED v ARG
5.	2008 in Mönchengladbach where she umpired with Chieko Soma ARG v GER
6.	2009 in Sydney where she will umpire with Lin Miao ARG v AUS

This means she will have umpired 6 out of 14 Champions Trophy finals given that the first final was only held in 1993; the previous events being round robin tournaments of 15 matches only.

Most Champions Trophy finals per umpire:

de Klerk, Marelize	6
Conen, Ute	3
Iparraguirre, Soledad	3
Soma Akiyama,Chieko	2
Farrell, Lyn	2
Cohen, Reneé	2
Roach, Lisa	1
de la Fuente, Carolina	1
Nockolds, Jane	1
Miao, Lin	1
Lario, Angela	1
Crespo, Laura	1
Clarke, Gill	1
Spitaleri, Gina	1
van Gemert, Mirjam	1
Barnesby, Judith	1
	28