Rodrigo Garza

Rodrigo Garza

Personal information
Born	3 December 1979 (1979-12-03) (age 37)
Medal record Men’s Field Hockey Representing  Spain Olympic Games 2008 Beijing Team European Championship 2005 Leipzig Team 2003 Barcelona Team 2007 Manchester Team Champions Trophy 2004 Lahore Team 2005 Chennai Team 2006 Terrassa Team Champions Challenge 2003 Johannesburg Team

Rodrigo Garza Barbero (born 3 December 1979 in Madrid) is a retired field hockey defender/midfielder from Spain. He represented his native country at three consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 2000.

After the Athens Games (2004), where the Spain finished in fourth position, Garza moved to The Netherlands, where he joined HC Den Bosch in the Dutch Premier League, called Hoofdklasse. He moved on to national champions HC Bloemendaal in the spring of 2007, and became champion of premier Dutch league in the 2008 and 2009 season, winning also the European Hockey League in his last season with the club. Since September 2009 he is playing for HGC, a Dutch team near The Hague, which is also in the Dutch Premier League.

Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, he started to play Hockey at his hometown school Colegio Valdeluz and then promoted through respective categories until reaching premier Spanish league "División de Honor" playing with San Pablo Valdeluz (later on Ssang Yong Valdeluz). He then moved to play for Club de Campo Villa de Madrid before arriving to the Netherlands.

Garza has been many times junior and senior champion and runner up in both field and indoor Hockey, participating in several Euro championships: Padova, Barcelona, Leipzig and Manchester. He has participated in two Hockey World Cups in Kuala Lumpur and Mönchengladbach. He achieved a major success by winning the first Champions Trophy for Spain in 2004 at the National Hockey Stadium in Lahore, Pakistan and ending runner up in 2008 edition celebrated in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

References

• Spanish Olympic Committee