BEIJING: World Cup holder Germany hobbled to a 1-1 draw against nemesis Belgium in the Olympic men’s field hockey yesterday as defending champion Australia pulverized South Africa 10-0.

The Germans, whose loss to Belgium in the European championships last year forced them to play the Olympic qualifiers, were once again caught napping as Cedric Charlier equalized Matthias Witthaus’s opener. The draw left Germany with four points from two matches in pool A, while Belgium gained their first point after losing their opening match against Spain.

With Spain, South Korea and New Zealand breathing down their necks, Germany can ill-afford another draw in their bid to take one of the two semifinal spots from the pool. There were no such worries for Australia, whose thrashing of South Africa equalled their previous best victory margin against Mexico in the 1972 Munich Olympics. Eli Matheson slammed a hat trick and Jamie Dwyer and David Guest scored two goals each as the Kookaburras, who routed Canada 6-1 in their first match, recorded their second successive win in Pool B.

Pakistan came back from a goal down to beat Canada 3-1, their first win in the competition after going down 4-2 to Britain on Monday.

Stunned by Bindi Kuller’s opener at the stroke of half-time, Pakistan fought back in the second session through goals by Muhammad Imran, Shafqat Rasool and Muhammad Waqas.

“The win will help our confidence in the tougher games to follow,” said Pakistani coach Naveed Alam. “It won’t be so easy with Australia and the Dutch in our group.

“We are still not making use of all the chances that come our way. We have to make the moves, not wait for the other team to give us openings.” Meanwhile, Asian Games champions South Korea were given a scare by Games debutants China before romping to a 5-2 win in Pool A with Jang Jong-Hyun scoring three penalty corner goals.

China snatched a 2-0 lead by the eighth minute before the Koreans hit back to follow up their 3-1 win over the same rivals in the Asian Games final in Qatar two years ago.

Australia displayed their awesome strike power with five goals in each half as the 13th-ranked South Africans wilted under the onslaught.

Dwyer, whose golden goal against the Netherlands won Australia their maiden Olympic men’s title in Athens four years ago, opened the floodgates with a second-minute goal.

Grant Schubert, Fergus Kavanagh and Des Abbott were the other scorers for Australia, who clash with Pakistan in their next game tomorrow. “We had a real solid game,” said Matheson, whose only other hat trick was also against South Africa.

“Maybe I should play a bit more against them. But our overall play was good, we kept the ball speed up and had a good balance with our forward.”