Sharne Mayers to officiate at U-21 hockey World Cup

MULTI-talented Zimbabwe senior women’s cricket team player, Sharne Mayers is set to officiate in another international hockey event, the 2023 International Hockey Federation (FIH) Junior World Cup which will be held in Santiago, Chile.

Mayers, an experienced hockey umpire was named as one of the 14 umpires who will be in charge of the Under-21s Women’s Outdoor World Cup which gets underway on 29 November to 10 December 2023. She is the only Zimbabwean on the list.

The list is made up of 24 members and the other 10 are non-umpires. There is one Technical Delegate and six Technical Officials. The other three appointments are the Medical Officer (one) and two Umpires Managers.

The 30-year-old top-order Lady Chevrons batter is used to high-pressure hockey matches having officiated at the 2023 Hockey Junior Africa Cup (AJC) competition which was held in Ismailia, Egypt in March. In December last year, she also officiated at the inaugural African Hockey5s World Cup Qualifiers which were held in Egypt as well.

She was also part of the officiating team in last year’s Africa Cup for Club Champions (ACCC) 33rd Men’s and 24th Women’s Editions which took place in Kenya. Mayers has a career spanning over seven years in hockey umpiring after making her debut in 2015 and has been going strong ever since, earning an FIH panel upgrade.

Mayers will not be the only one representing Zimbabwe in the World Cup as the national women’s Under-21s team also qualified to take part in the global showpiece. The Zimbabwean team will be one of the two African nations taking part alongside South Africa.

Zimbabwe booked their place in the global showpiece after securing second place in the AJC, where they finished with six points from a possible nine. South Africa, who topped the standings, won all their three games to secure nine out of nine points.

The tournament will be made up of 16 nations that have been put into groups of four. The Zimbabwean side was put in Pool B alongside Argentina, Korea and Spain. Pool A is made up of Australia, Chile, Netherlands and South Africa while Pool C has Belgium, Canada, Germany and India. The last group, Pool D is made up of England, Japan, New Zealand and the United States of America (USA).

Apart from officiating, Mayers has represented Zimbabwe in hockey as a player with her first international outing coming at the age group level at 18 in 2010 before she got her senior cap in 2011 and also played for the Under-21 women’s team in 2012.

FIH Under-21 Women’s World Cup Umpires List:

Umpires Managers: Michelle Joubert (South Africa), Roel van Eert (Netherlands)

Umpires: Sandra Adell (Spain), Jianjun Chen (China), Minami Inamoto (Japan), Hee Kim Jung (Korea), Sharne Mayers (Zimbabwe), Kamile Mockaityte (Lithuania), Lani Nichol (New Zealand), Victoria Pazos (Paraguay), Kristy Robertson (Australia), Magali Sergeant (Belgium), Katrina Turner (New Zealand), Veronica Villafane (Argentina), Junko Wagatsuma (Japan), Lizelotte Wolter (Netherlands). – @brandon_malvin