Ireland's Olympic heroics on the hockey pitch have not gone unrecognised, as goalkeeper David Harte has been nominated for the 2016 Hockey Stars awards.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) announced the nominees for their annual awards, recognising the best players, goalkeepers, rising stars, coaches and umpires of the year, and after making history in Rio, Ireland have a contender among the nominees.
The 2016 side were the first Irish hockey team to make it to the Olympics since 1908, and in beating Canada, they claimed the first victory for the team since that tournament over 100 years ago.
They ran eventual winners Argentina close in a thrilling 3-2 loss, which saw them bow out at the group stage of the contest. However, their performances meant that the Irish team entered the top 10 in the world rankings for the first time ever.
For his performances in Rio and throughout the year, David Harte has been nominated as the best goalkeeper, along with Juan Vivaldi of Argentina, Jaap Stockmann of Netherlands, Belgium's Vincent Vanasch and Parattu Raveendran Sreejesh of India.
The Irish captain will hope to repeat his success from 2015 when the winners are announced at a ceremony in January next year.
The result will be decided by a combination of an online poll which is open to fans, and votes from other players. Voting for the awards, which opens on November 16th and closes on December 2nd, will be available on the FIH website here.
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