The rivals of the Belarus national hockey team in the final round of the Olympic qualification were announced

The rivals of the Belarus hockey team in the final round of the Olympic qualification for the 2022 Games in Beijing became known.

As it's known, Mikhail Zakharov's wards were placed in the group D and together with the teams of Slovakia and Austria, were awaiting which of the groups will join the quartet. As a result, the lucky ones became the Poles, as they didn't let the favourites from the Kazakhstan's team, who train under the leadership of a Belarusian specialist Andrei Skabelka, to go further beyond the third round of the Olympic qualification. The decisive meeting in Nur-Sultan ended in favor of the Polish national team - 3: 2.

The teams of the "D Group" will hold their matches in Slovakia from August 27 to 30, 2020. The exact place and time of the matches will be announced later.

The following teams will compete for the chance to go to the Olympics:

The Group E (Latvia): Latvia, France, Italy, Hungary.

The Group F (Norway): Norway, Denmark, Republic of Korea, Slovenia.

The winners of the qualification starts will get the right to go to the 2022 Olympics. China (the right of the hosts of the competitions), as well as the eight best-rated IIHF teams from Canada, Finland, Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the USA, Switzerland and Germany have already secured a place among the participants in the main starts of the four-year-period.

Source: Belta