field hockey
Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...
player from Australia who plays as a forward.
Personal life
Gabrielle Nance was born and raised in
Kingscliff, New South Wales
Kingscliff is a coastal town just south of Tweed Heads in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, and is a beach community offering a variety of holiday accommodations. Together with the villages of Chinderah and Fingal, it ...
.
Nance relocated to
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
SA Suns
The SA Suns (formerly Southern Suns - prior to 2015) are a women's field hockey team based in South Australia that competes in the Australian Hockey League (AHL).
The SA Suns won national championships in 1995 and 2011.
Current Team
The followi ...
. She represented the team from 2014 to 2017.
Hockey One
In 2019, Nance was named in the
Adelaide Fire
Adelaide Fire is an Australian professional field hockey club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The club was established in 2019, and is one of 7 established to compete in Hockey Australia's new premier domestic competition, Hockey One.
The c ...
Hockey Australia
Hockey Australia is an organisation that formed from the merger of the Australian Hockey Association and Women's Hockey Australia in 2000. It is the national body responsible for the promotion, development and administration of field hockey in A ...
's new domestic league,
Hockey One
The Sultana Bran Hockey One is a field hockey competition organised by Hockey Australia, which replaced the Australian Hockey League.
The competition serves as Australia's premier domestic hockey league, helping unearth future talent for select ...
.
National team
Nance made her debut for the
Hockeyroos
The Australia women's national field hockey team (nicknamed the Hockeyroos) are, as of January 2019, ranked third in the world. Having played their first game in 1914, and their first Olympic game in 1984, they are one of Australia's most succes ...
in 2014 during a test series against
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
in
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
. Following her debut, Nance won her first medal with Australia at the Champions Trophy in Mendoza; the team finished in second place, winning a silver medal.
In 2016, Nance represented her country at the
Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...
in Rio de Janeiro.
Following her silver medal-winning appearance at the
2018 Commonwealth Games
The 2018 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXI Commonwealth Games and also known as Gold Coast 2018, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth that were held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, bet ...
on the
Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
, Nance made the decision to take a break from international hockey to reignite her passion for the game.
Nance returned to the national squad in 2020.