Luciana Aymar


Luciana Paula Aymar is a retired Argentine field hockey player.
She is the only player in history to receive the FIH Player of the Year Award eight times, and she is considered as the best female hockey player of all time.
Luciana is known for her ability to beat opposing players using her pace and dribbling skills, drawing comparisons with Argentinian footballer Diego Maradona. For this reason she has received the nicknames "La Maga" and "The Maradona of Field Hockey".
Aymar was the flag bearer for Argentina at the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the second field hockey athlete being honoured this way after Marcelo Garraffo.

Career

Luciana started playing at age seven for Club Atlético Fisherton in her native Rosario. She moved to Jockey Club de Rosario six years later. She gradually began training with the junior national team, for which she had to travel every day to Buenos Aires. In her international career she played for the Rot Weiss Köln from Germany and for Real Club de Barcelona from Spain. In her country, Luciana played for Quilmes Atlético Club and GEBA, where she won La Liga Nacional and the Torneo Metropolitano. In 1997 she was part of the Argentina junior team that won the Pan American Games Junior Championship and the bronze medal at the Hockey Junior World Cup and a year later she made her debut for the Argentina senior team, finishing fourth at the 1998 Hockey World Cup. She was the youngest Argentine to be accepted into the squad when she was just 16.
Aymar was part of a generation in Argentine field hockey that went on to win several international tournaments from the 1999 Pan American Games onwards, including four Olympic medals, and six Champions Trophies. She was part of the squad that won the 2002 and 2010 Hockey World Cup, with the latter being held in her hometown Rosario.
In 2008, Luciana was declared Legend of Hockey by International Hockey Federation.
She was the flag bearer for her country at the opening ceremony of the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and at the London 2012 Summer Olympics.
In the 2012 Summer Olympics Luciana became the second Argentine to achieve 4 medals, being the first sportsman Carlos Espínola.
Luciana played her last international game with Argentina on Sunday 7 December 2014, in the city of Mendoza, Argentina, winning her sixth Champions Trophy.

Awards and honours

International

;Argentina Junior
;Argentina
;Rot-Weiss Köln
;Real Club de Polo de Barcelona
;GEBA