Luciana Aymar

Luciana started playing at age seven for Club Atlético Fisherton in her native Rosario. She moved to Jockey Club de Rosario six years later. She gradually began training with the junior national team, for which she had to travel every day to Buenos Aires. In her international career she played for Rot Weiss Köln from Germany and for Real Club de Barcelona from Spain. In her country, Luciana played for Quilmes Atlético Club and GEBA, where she won La Liga Nacional (The National League) and the Torneo Metropolitano. In 1997 she was part of the Argentina junior team that won the Pan American Games Junior Championship and the bronze medal at the Hockey Junior World Cup and a year later she made her debut for the Argentina senior team, finishing fourth at the 1998 Hockey World Cup. She was the youngest Argentine to be accepted into the squad when she was just 16.

Aymar was part of a generation in Argentine field hockey that went on to win several international tournaments from the 1999 Pan American Games onwards, including four Olympic medals, and six Champions Trophies. She was part of the squad that won the 2002 and 2010 Hockey World Cup, with the latter being held in her hometown Rosario.^[1]

She is the only player in history to receive the FIH Player of the Year Award eight times,^[2] and is considered as the best female hockey player of all time.^[3][4][5] In 2010 she was granted the Platinum Konex Award as the best hockey player of the last decade in Argentina.^[6]

Luciana is known for her ability to beat opposing players using her pace and dribbling skills, drawing comparisons with Argentine footballer Diego Maradona. For this reason she has received the nicknames "La Maga" ("The Magician") and "The Maradona of Field Hockey".

Aymar was the flag bearer for Argentina at the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the second field hockey athlete being honoured this way after Marcelo Garraffo.

Aymar was born to René Aymar and Nilda Vicente de Aymar. She has three siblings. Since 2017, Aymar had been in a relationship with former Chilean professional tennis player Fernando González,^[7] and they have two children: a son born in 2019,^[8] and a daughter born in 2021.^[9]

International

Argentina Junior

• Pan American Games: Gold Medal (1997)
• Junior World Cup: Bronze Medal (1997)

Argentina

• Pan American Games: Gold Medal (1999, 2003, 2007), Silver Medal (2011)
• Summer Olympics: Silver Medal (2000, 2012), Bronze Medal (2004, 2008).
• Champions Trophy: Gold Medal (2001, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014), Silver Medal (2002, 2007, 2011), Bronze Medal (2004)
• World Cup: Gold Medal (2002, 2010), Bronze Medal (2006, 2014)

Club

Rot-Weiss Köln

• European Club Championship: 1998

Real Club de Polo de Barcelona

• Copa de la Reina: 2004

GEBA

• Liga Nacional: 2008, 2009
• Torneo Metropolitano: 2008, 2009

Individual

• Champions Trophy's Player of the Tournament: 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014
• FIH Player of the Year: 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013
• World Cup's Player of the Tournament: 2002, 2010
• Nominated for 2026 Princess of Asturias Prize in Sport (Premio Princesa de Asturias)

Public image and legacy

Luciana Aymar has received extensive media coverage in Argentina, Chile and around the world. A 2016 documentary film titled "Lucha: Playing the Impossible" tells the story of her development and her successes as a field hockey star, first in Argentina and then on the world stage. ^[10] The title is a play on words: Lucha is both Luciana's nickname as well as the Spanish word for "fight".

In the city of Rosario, Argentina, Luciana Aymar's hometown, there is a stadium--designed for field hockey and with a seating capacity of 12,000 spectators--named "Estadio Mundialista Luciana Aymar." The stadium was built for the purpose of hosting the 2010 Women's Field Hockey World Cup.

She currently lives in Chile with her husband and two children.