Australia off to World Cup after security go-ahead

Melbourne: With their national body finding "no credible security threat" to the World Cup, Australia's hockey team on Sunday left for New Delhi to participate in the tournament starting on February 28.

The former champions, who were in two minds about participating in the event following threats from a terror outfit, are satisfied with the security preparations now.

"The information from all sources is consistent. The advice states that there is a strong commitment and tangible evidence of the authorities' ability to implement robust security measures to ensure our team's safety at all times.

"All threats have been assessed and there are no known credible World Cup threats at this time," Hockey Australia said in a statement.

HA said the security assessment has been throughly discussed.

"Hockey Australia's board, chief executive and team management have accessed all this information and discussed the findings in consultation with security experts.

"The findings have been communicated to team members prior to their departure to ensure that they have all the information available to inform their decision of whether they choose to participate," HA said.

"As a result of the consistent information received from these, and other sources, the Kookaburras will continue with their plans to participate in the 2010 World Cup," HA added.

The players flew out this afternoon from Perth.

The Australian High Commission attended a security briefing in Delhi on Friday where the police gave them details of the safety measures for the World Cup.

Players were barred from speaking to the media about the security situation before they flew out and were reportedly not allowed to speak to the media before boarding their flight.

Their coach Charlesworth earlier told 'ABC' that while the players were not too concerned, their families were certainly jittery.

"You can understand that and, of course, it's their families and their loved ones who are most concerned," he said.

"We've obviously looked very closely into it and we have a range of security measures in place and we believe the threat is no greater than it was a few weeks ago.

"Certainly that's the advice we've got from our government and therefore we're looking forward to the competition," he added.