Jacob Draper
Welsh field hockey player (born 1998)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jacob Benjamin Draper (born 24 July 1998) is a Welsh field hockey player who plays as a defender for Dutch Hoofdklasse club Pinoké and the Wales and Great Britain national teams.[2] He competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics and the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Cwmbran, Wales
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Jacob Benjamin Draper | |||||||||||||
| Born |
24 July 1998 Cwmbran, Wales | |||||||||||||
| Weight | 74 kg (163 lb) | |||||||||||||
| Playing position | Defender | |||||||||||||
| Senior career | ||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||
| – | Gwent HC | |||||||||||||
| –2018 | Preston HC | |||||||||||||
| 2018–2019 | Cardiff & Met | |||||||||||||
| 2019–2021 | Hampstead & Westminster | |||||||||||||
| 2021–2022 | Beerschot | |||||||||||||
| 2022–2023 | Hampstead & Westminster | |||||||||||||
| 2023–2025 | Pinoké[1] | |||||||||||||
| National team | ||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Caps | Goals | |||||||||||
| 2016–present | Wales | 91 | ||||||||||||
| 2016–present | GB | 63 | ||||||||||||
Medal record
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Biography
Draper was born in Cwmbran, Wales, and started his hockey career with Gwent HC. He then played for Preston, followed by Cardiff & Met. While at Preston, Draper made his senior debut, aged 18, for Wales on 28 August 2016, in a 5–1 win over Austria in Vienna, Austria. He played for Wales at Hockey at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast[3][4] and 2019 Men's EuroHockey Nations Championship, where they finished 6th.[5]
Draper left Cardiff & Met to join Hampstead & Westminster for the 2019/20 season.[6]
Draper was selected to represent Great Britain squad for the delayed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo[7] and was selected to represent Wales at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.[8]
He joined Belgian club Beerschot for the 2021–22 season[9] before joining Hampstead & Westminster in the Men's England Hockey League Premier Division for the 2022–23 season. He was part of the Welsh team at the 2023 World Cup, which was the first time in their history that Wales had appeared in the world Cup.[10]
Draper joined Pinoké in the Netherlands and was subsequently selected to represent Great Britain at the 2024 Summer Olympics.[11][12] The team went out in the quarter-finals after losing a penalty shootout to India.[13]
In 2025, he helped Wales win the gold medal at the European Championship II, defeating Ireland in the final.[14][15]
