GRAZ, Austria — Jamaica’s floor hockey players endured another difficult day at the Special Olympics World Winter Games as they fell out of gold medal contention yesterday after another defeat.

They went down 0-7 to the formidable Hungary outfit in the top floor hockey division in the afternoon’s encounter on the court, inside Stadthalle Graz in Austria.

Earlier, the inexperienced Jamaicans fought pluckily to hold Costa Rica — who beat them 2-0 in a preliminary game days ago — to a 0-0 result in the morning fixture.

Previously, the Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) team was thrashed 0-12 by Canada.

Canada and Hungary are expected to square off for the gold medal. The Hungary team warmed up for that encounter with an entertaining 3-1 victory over the Canadians late yesterday. Hungary had beaten Jamaica in the final of the top floor hockey division at the 2013 Games in the Republic of Korea.

Up to press time yesterday, the Jamaicans were awaiting a meeting with organisers to get confirmation on how third place will be decided.

“Given the fact that they are a relatively new team, I think they performed well,” Glendon West, the SOJ’s head of delegation, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

“I believe, though, that we should not have been in that division at all. If we were in the correct division we’d have shown more. In our preliminary games, apart from one, we either had [marginal] victories or we drew, so I think we should not have been in that division, but that’s part of life,” added West, referring to Jamaica being placed in the toughest division against the vastly superior Hungarians and Canadians.

In the divisioning games, Jamaica had recorded three victories — two draws and the defeat to Costa Rica. Those preliminary games lasted only nine minutes, with three minutes of action for each line of players.

In the round robin phase there are nine lines of players, with each line on court for three minutes, for a total game time of 27 minutes. The divisioning contests allow organisers to group teams of similar competence, to minimise one-sided outcomes.

But while yesterday Jamaica matched the Costa Ricans, they were later outclassed by Hungary. West suggested that his team is on par with Costa Rica. However, he said the gap in experience between them and the Hungary team is considerable.

“We got several opportunities to score against Costa Rica, but the guys were off target. Jamaica defended very well and, to their credit, they moved the puck around efficiently as opposed to when they played against the Canadian team.

“Against Hungary it was different. If you notice from the last Games, the Hungarian team appears to be the same one that beat us in the final last time. Here, our team is almost a new team. We only have six members from the team in South Korea, so I think Hungary is better prepared and understand the strategy better than us, and I think they really outplayed us,” he told the Observer.