Alyson Annan


Alyson Regina Annan is an Australian retired field hockey player, who earned a total number of 228 international caps for the Women's National Team, in which she scored 166 goals. Annan is presently the head coach of the Netherlands women's national field hockey team; she led the team to a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. During 2013 Annan gained the prestigious award of becoming a member of Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

Biography

Annan was born on 12 June 1973 in Wentworthville, New South Wales. She was voted the Best Female Hockey Player in the World in 1999. In the following year, she led the Australian team to gold at the 2000 Summer Olympics. She subsequently retired from international competition and moved to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands she played for HC Klein Zwitserland from The Hague. She retired in 2003, becoming the coach of Dutch league team HC Klein Zwitserland. In 2004, she was an assistant of Dutch Head Coach Marc Lammers at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, when the Netherlands won silver.
Annan was married to Argentinian hockey player, Maximiliano Caldas. After their divorce her partner became Carole Thate, a former Dutch hockey captain and fellow Olympic medallist. Annan and Thate had their first child, Sam Henk Brian Thate, in May 2007. Their second son, Cooper Thate, was born in October 2008.
Annan was to be the coach of the first women's team of the Amsterdamsche Hockey & Bandy Club during the 2012-2013 season.
In 2013 Annan was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
In October 2015 she was named as head coach of the Netherlands women's team, succeeding Sjoerd Marijne. Annan's former husband Max Caldas previously coached the Netherlands women's team to a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games. During the
2016 games in Rio de Janeiro Annan coached her team to a silver medal losing to the Great Britain Team after shoot-outs in the final.

Major international tournaments