2023 Men’s FIH Hockey World Cup
16 teams. Two amazing stadiums. Sugar cane turf.
The World Cup is where hockey legends are made, and team dynasties are created.
The 2023 Men’s FIH Hockey World Cup is being held in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, India from 13 to 29 January 2023.
The World Cup features 16 teams, Belgium the defending champions (and current Olympic champions) can become a hockey dynasty if they join Pakistan, Germany and Australia as the only teams to win back-to-back Men’s World Cups. They will be pushed to limit of their skill by Australia, who are #1 in the world rankings and are hockey’s most successful World Cup team in the turf era (since 1986) with 3 golds and 8 medals overall.
The event will be played at two magnificent hockey stadiums:
The 16,000 seat Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar hosted the previous Men’s World Cup in 2018 and is one of the top 10 biggest hockey stadiums in the world
The brand new Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium in Rourkela has been built for the tournament. It is hockey’s biggest all-seater stadium (20,000) and will be a spectacular venue for hockey fans and players.
Poligras has been chosen for 10 World Cups, including the 2026 World Cups.
With 8 Olympics and 10 World Cups, Poligras is hockey’s #1 turf. For Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, Poligras Platinum GT turfs have been installed at both stadiums as well as for the training turfs. The installation was completed by Polytan’s long-term partner, Rajiv K. Sharma.
This turf is another green technology (GT) advance for hockey. Poligras Platinum, was developed for the Rio Olympic Games and is one of hockey’s most popular turfs. The GT variation features 20% polyethylene made from sugar cane rather than fossil fuels.
This sugar cane green technology was first developed for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and is being incorporated throughout the Poligras turf range. The latest advance is the Poligras Paris GT zero which is hockey’s first carbon zero hockey turf and will be used for the Paris Olympic Games.
Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium
See the video of the amazing 20,000 seat stadium in Rourkela. It even has a swimming pool!
Major sporting events are huge construction endeavours and sport surfaces are at their centre. It has been an honour to install our Poligras Platinum GT turf at the heart of the the world's largest all-seater hockey stadium in Rourkela for the 2023 Hockey World Cup. Grab a seat and see what it took to deliver one of hockey's Superstructures - coming soon on National Geographic and previewed here:
Shane McLeod (NZ)
World Cup-Winning Coach (Belgium)
Shane McLeod is a Hockey World Cup-winning coach. He coached the Belgium Men’s Team to gold at the 2018 Men’s Hockey World Cup and Tokyo2020. For Belgium, winning the World Cup took years of development and a focus on up-skilling young players and creating more rounded players. They also had to overcome the cultural divide between the Flemish and French-speaking sides of the squad and demystify the game’s top teams. Before 2018, the World Cup had only been won by hockey’s powerhouses (Pakistan, Australia, Germany, Holland and India), which makes Belgium’s achievement all the more remarkable.
Matthias Witthaus (GER)
Double World Cup Winner
You have to be a special player to win a World Cup and Matthias Witthaus, with two World Cup and two Olympic gold medals, is one of the greatest hockey winners of all time. He played in the all-conquering German men’s team that from 2002 to 2012 won it all. Matthias’s story begins as the youngest player (aged 16) to play for Germany and ends with gold at London 2012. He is now coaching at the Hamburg Polo Club and has taken them from the Division 4 to the Bundesliga. Matthias knows what it takes to be the best and win at the highest levels and he believes that players need discipline, commitment and boundaries, as well as the freedom to make their own decisions
Shaun Goudie
World Cup Turf Builder - Poligras & Sport Group
Major sporting events are huge construction endeavours and sport surfaces are at their centre. Shaun Goudie is the General Manager of Sport Group Asia and he is also Sport Group’s Head of Major events. Shaun has led the installation of the hockey turfs at the London, Beijing and Tokyo Olympics, and two Asian Games. He manages complex projects and rolls his sleeves up to ensure the turfs are World-Cup-perfect. We spoke to Shaun to learn what it takes to build elite hockey facilities.
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You have just finished building the World Cup turfs in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela – how was it?
‘It was great. The World Cup is so prestigious and there is such a big passion for the game in India. I have been lucky to lead the installation of the hockey turfs at the London, Beijing and Tokyo Olympics, and two Asian Games so I have seen some impressive hockey venues. But Bhubaneswar and Rourkela might just top the lot. The atmosphere will be so great for the fans and players.
What was the scope of the work?
‘Each venue has two new turfs - a training turf and the main stadium turf. We installed Poligras Platinum GT turfs, which feature our sugar cane green technology. We did the work over several blocks; in total we were probably on site for about 100 days. We had installed the turfs at Bhubaneswar before the 2018 World Cup, so this venue was familiar to us.
It is a new stadium in Rourkela – what were the challenges?
‘The Birsa Munda Stadium in Rourkela is brand new and has been built for the World Cup. It is beautiful stadium and will be an amazing asset for hockey. As the turf installers our challenge was that we had to work as part of the over stadium construction. We have experience doing this, but the coordination and logistics are quite complex, for example as we were building the base for the turf there might have been 1000 workers on site building the overall stadium.
It was a huge construction site with lots of heavy machinery, materials and equipment. And amongst all of this, we had to install a perfect surface. With heavy lift cranes placing the steel structure, it was a constant reminder that any mistake from above, had a real possibility to inflict major damage on the new laid turfs.
In India you always face challenging weather conditions, on site in Rourkela the temperatures got close to 45 °C and as we moved into the monsoon season 150mm of rain in a day was not unusual.
From a hockey facilities point of view what is the World Cup legacy?
‘As part of their World Cup commitment, the state of Odisha has commissioned many new hockey turfs. We are currently working on 5 new turfs in the region. This is a real legacy for the game and will open hockey to many more young players. The Indian team is very strong and hopefully they will have a good World Cup – this combined with new facilities could supercharge Indian hockey.’
What hockey projects are you doing next?
‘We always have projects around Asia, shortly we will start a couple of new hockey turfs in Korea. Perhaps most interestingly is Oman, where they are building new facilities for the 2024 Hockey 5s World Cup.’
1000 workers. 45 degrees Celsius. Monsoon rains.
Photos from the turf installation at Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium, Rourkela, India
What does it take to install World Cup turfs?
The 2023 World Cup will use 4 x hockey turfs, but the blue turf is only part of the work. This was a major construction project, which included:
Where to watch men’s hockey’s greatest competition?
The 2023 Men’s Hockey World Cup will be broadcast around the world. Here is a list of the broadcasters for the competing teams - we hope you enjoy the tournament and supporting the players, teams and game you love.
Recap: 2022 Women’s FIH Hockey World Cup, Spain & Holland
World Cup turf technology – bluer, greener better.
The 2022 Women’s World Cup was won by The Netherlands who defeated Argentina 3-1 in the final. The tournament featured brilliant hockey with stars such as player of the tournament, María José Granatto (ARG) shining bright.
With a total of 149 goals across 44 games, there was no shortage of action on the Poligras Platinum GT turfs which contained Green Technology originally developed for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Both venues, the Estadi Olímpic de Terrassa in Spain and the Wagener Stadium in Amsterdam used Poligras. We look forward to returning to the Wagener Stadium in 2026 which will be Poligras’s third World Cup at the venue.
Hockey’s better in bigger stadiums
Hockey has millions of players and with big, modern stadiums can attract thousands of fans like other major sports. The 2023 World Cup will be played in two of hockey’s biggest stadiums. Bhubaneswar with 16,000 seats and the Birsa Munda Stadium in Rourkela with 20,000 seats are in hockey’s top 10 biggest stadiums. Asia dominates hockey’s big stadium list with 18 of the top 25 biggest stadiums.
The 2022 Women’s World Cup was played at Estadi Olímpic de Terrassa in Spain, which has a 11,500 seat capacity and Wagener Stadium in Amsterdam which seats 9,000 fans.
Where are hockey’s biggest stadiums? Test your knowledge, here is the full list of hockey’s largest venues.
Hockey can now be played in any stadium, there are no limits. Find out more about Big Stadium Hockey.
WHAT’S NEXT? Paris 2024 Olympic Games
Hockey goes full circle. From natural grass to carbon zero hockey turf.
Paris 2024 will be the 8th Olympics to be played on Poligras - starting in 1980 and including every Olympics since 2008, including London’s famous blue turf.
Poligras Paris GT zero, developed for the Paris 2024 Olympics is the world’s first carbon zero hockey turf.*
80% biobased material (sugarcane)
Made with green energy
Features a new backing for better CO2 balance
Less water
Highly durable
Available globally
Using sugarcane as a bio-raw material for the turf’s fibres means the Poligras Paris GT zero turf saves 73 tonnes of CO2 compared to a conventional turf. This amazing science is great for hockey’s future, find out more.
*Independent certification ongoing
WHAT’S NEXT? 2026 World Cups on Poligras
Wavre in Belgium and Amstelveen in The Netherlands will host the joint (Men’s and Women’s) 2026 World Cups.
Wavre (population 34,000) will develop a new hockey venue for the event while the Wagener Stadium in Amsterdam will host the World Cup again after hosting in 2022. Both venues will use Poligras hockey turfs.
The 2026 World Cups will be notable as the first World Cups to be played on non-watered hockey turfs. To enhance hockey’s environmental sustainability the FIH (International Hockey Federation) is shifting their events towards non-watered turfs. This will have significant impact on all areas of the game as the full hockey equipment ecosystem (balls, sticks, shoes & goalkeeper pads) plus players, coaches and officials must all collectively contribute to dry hockey.
Sport Group, the parent company of Polytan and Poligras, has been working on dry hockey turf R&D. A prototype was used at the Hockey5s event in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The non-water hockey turf event timeline includes:
Available worldwide
