The twelve teams in the tournament were divided into two pools of six, with each team initially playing round-robin games within their pool. Following the completion of the round-robin, the top two teams from each pool advance to the semifinals. All other teams play classification matches to determine the final tournament rankings. The two semi-final winners meet for the gold medal match, while the semi-final losers play in the bronze medal match.
Qualification
Each of the continental champions from five federations and host received an automatic berth. The European federation received two extra quotas, while Oceanian received one extra quota, based upon the FIH World Rankings at the completion of the 2006 World Cup. In addition to the three teams qualifying through the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, the following twelve teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings, competed in this tournament.[2][3]
^1 – China qualified both as host and continental champion, therefore that quota was given to the Asian federation allowing Japan to qualify directly to the 2008 Summer Olympics as the second-placed team at the 2006 Asian Games .
Umpires
Fifteen umpires for the women's event were appointed by the FIH.[4] During each match, a video umpire was used to assist the on-field umpires in determining if a goal had been legally scored.[5]