Dorado spells disaster for British women

Hockey

Natalia Dorado, Spain's captain, scored with three well-struck penalty corners to send Great Britain tumbling to a 3-1 defeat in Madrid yesterday - their worst defeat at the hands of the Olympic champions since they lost 5-1 in Santander in 1988 just prior to departure to the Seoul Olympics, writes Bill Colwill.

It was a disappointing result for their coach, Sue Slocombe, as the team completed their extended preparation programme of international matches prior to departure a week today to North Carolina for acclimatisation before moving to Atlanta.

Yesterday Britain pinned the Spanish into their own half for long periods without looking like scoring and it was not until the 67th minute that they won their only penalty corner, which Scotland's Sue Fraser converted.

Spain, fielding eight Olympic gold medallists, looked dangerous on the break and even more dangerous at set-pieces, Dorado scoring from three of their six penalty corners.

SPAIN: M Gonzalez; E Urkizo; S de Ignacio, M Telleria, C Gonzalez; N Dorado (capt), C Barea, B Larzabal; T Motos, S Barrio, N Gabellanes. Substitutes used: S Manrique, M Rueda, L Lopez and M Seito.

GREAT BRITAIN: J Thompson (Ipswich); J Atkins (Bradford Swithinbank, capt), S Fraser (Bonagrass Grove), K Brown (Slough), K Johnson (Balsam Leicester); P Robertson (Bonagrass), M Davies (Sutton Canada Life), T Miller (Clifton); J Sixsmith (Sutton), M Nicholls (Slough), T Cullen (Hightown). Substitutes used: C Cook (Hightown), J Mould (Balsam Leicester) and A Bennett (Slough).

Umpires: M Martos (Sp) and G Clarke (Eng).