Olympics 2012: Germany beat Netherlands 2-1, retain hockey title

Germany's stoic defence withstood a series of raids by the Netherlands as the defending champions retained their men's hockey Olympic gold by carving out a 2-1 victory in the finals in London.

Jan Phillip Rabente left a stamp of his brilliance to score twice to give Germany the crucial edge in the match.

Compact defence on both sides kept the initial play confined to the midfield before the Netherlands mounted a series of attacks and German goalkeeper Max Weinhold had to come out to block a couple of shots in the goal mouth.

Rabente tilted the scales in Germany's favour when he opened the scoring two minutes before half time by dribbling past two defenders in the circle and then beating the Dutch goalkeeper Jaap Stockmann with a flick that ended in the right side of the net at the Riverbank Arena here yesterday.

Germany's key player Christopher Zeller was at a loss of words after winning his second Olympic gold medal — both times with his brother Phillip Zeller.

"It was a big night I am so happy right now I just don't know what to say. We did it and it feels unbelievable," Christopher Zeller said.

"There's going to be a big party. The last three weeks were pretty hard, the tournament was pretty long," he added, complimenting the Netherlands for playing an intense game.

"Netherlands were great opponents, they played a great tournament," he said.

Netherlands had to keep out some more German raids early in the second half before young shooter Mink van der Weerden converted their third penalty corner by sending the drag flick into the net in the 54th minute.

Germany enjoyed territorial domination for an extended period as they broke into the circle on three occasions, but were unable to breach the Dutch defence who fell back to crowd the scoring zone.

Rabente scored the gold medal winning goal in four minutes from the hooter when he lunged forward to deflect a long diagonal ball from Tobias Hauke into the boards.