Back from career-threatening injury, Dutch star Felice targets LA28 to add to an overflowing medal cabinet

Olympic gold medalist Felice Albers overcomes injury scare, returns to hockey stronger, and launches her own jewelry brand.

Six months back, Felice Albers was riding the high of her second Olympic gold at Paris as the Dutch women went about extending their absolute dominance of world hockey in style. Soon after that, she was faced with the prospect of never playing again, troubled by a persistently dodgy knee that, along with a broken ankle, made it difficult to even go about her daily activities.

On Monday, as the Netherlands team went through its first training session for the FIH Pro League here, Felice was back to what she does best as she awaits her return to competition with the national side. “We had a training camp in Valencia where I played a test match against Spain as part of the preparation for Pro League in Argentina but this will finally be official matches,” she said during a brief break in training.

That Olympic final was the last game she played before injury played spoilsport. “Really glad and happy to be back in action and back in squad. It’s nice to play games again, really excited. It’s annoying to sit out for so long but injuries are part of sports, you just have them and yeah, I love to play hockey, so it’s very annoying. But I am stronger than ever now,” she said.

It took a visit to a specialist in London for her to realise that not playing again was a very real possibility. But that visit also gave her hope that she could be back, with the right treatment, training and rehabilitation. Having made her debut in 2019, the 25-year old Felice has, in less than six years, won everything on offer as part of the all-winning Dutch side – World Cup, EuroHockey Championships, two Olympics and the Pro League an incredible four times. And being the youngest FIH women’s Player of the Year in 2022, at the age of 23. She was not going to let it all go so easily.

“I have to stop now, eh?” she laughed. “No but seriously, you do have targets when you are a top sportsperson. I think about what’s coming in the summer -- we have first competition in the Netherlands, then the European Championships. I still want to go to LA in 2028, so that’s of course the goal. But for me, I think the goal is to just enjoy hockey now, especially when you have an injury. That’s the most important thing for now,” she said.

The injury scare has also made her see things differently now. “I felt like I was a kid of five who’s just starting to play hockey (on comeback). And you really appreciate that you can do it again, especially when you know where you’re coming from. I’m really enjoying my time now with the team,” she admitted.

It also gave her time to work on something she had started earlier but never really had time for – her own jewelery brand. Not surprisingly, it’s called Stick To Your Dreams. “I started a year ago and it’s a sports jewelery brand, like what I am wearing now. It’s nice, I design them and I like to inspire people to get on and play hockey. Specially when you’re wearing it, you see the hockey stick and you remember your dreams too,” she explained