Britain overcome NZ for women's hockey bronze

London: Great Britain won their first women's Olympic field hockey medal in 20 years by beating New Zealand 3-1 in the bronze-medal match at the Riverbank Arena on Friday.

Prince William's wife, Kate Middleton, was on hand to applaud the goals, all of them from second-half penalty corners. The bronze matched Britain's only previous medal, earned at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Alex Danson and Sarah Thomas deflected in hits by captain Kate Walsh, and Crista Cullen slammed in the third one.

New Zealand, who scored through Stacey Michelsen with two minutes to go, were already assured of their highest Olympic finish after making the semi-finals for the first time. Their fourth placing is two above their ranking.

After a quiet first half of a few chances, New Zealand hit the post just 39 seconds into the second half. Katie Glynn, her head still bandaged from the whack she received in the semi-finals, glanced at Cathryn Finlayson's poke. Glynn thought she'd scored but the ball rolled slowly off the left post and England goalkeeper Elizabeth Storry kicked it away.

That was to be the best chance until the end for the Kiwis, who lost the first penalty shootout in Olympic history to the Netherlands in a dramatic semi-final.

From Great Britain's third penalty corner of the game, Walsh hit left to Danson, whose deflection wrong-footed New Zealand. Britain lost any further team referrals five minutes later when they challenged a New Zealand corner that they successfully defended.

Britain bombed their fourth corner when they failed to set the ball, but five minutes later, Cullen powered the next corner home, her fifth goal of the tournament and tied for the team lead with Danson.

The result was certain, but Britain added a third when Walsh hit the other way — right — from the next corner and Sarah Thomas ricocheted it in at the open right post.

New Zealand finished with their first corner success from three attempts, with Michelsen glancing in the hit by Clarissa Eshuis.

Later on Friday, the final had the Olympic champion Netherlands playing world champion Argentina.

Earlier, three-time champion Australia beat China 2-0 for fifth, two places above their ranking, and Belgium earned their first Olympic win beating the United States 2-1 for 11th on debut.