Iceland's ice hockey players got off to a winning start in the second round of pre-qualifying for the Beiging 2022 Games as they beat Kyrgyzstan 9-4 ©IIHF

Kyrgyzstan, one of two teams to progress from the first round of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) pre-qualifying series for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, found the going tougher in their opening second round match in Romania.

They were beaten 9-4 to  Iceland in the opening Group K match at the Brasov Arena.

In the other Group K match the hosts defeated Israel 15-0.

Chinese Taipei face the second Group L match against hosts Spain tomorrow, with the other two teams involved, Mexico and The Netherlands, meeting earlier at Barcelona's Palau de Gel.

Sibak’s Zibel Arena, in Croatia, will host Group M, involving four teams making their first appearance in the pre-qualifiers - Serbia, Turkey, Bulgaria and the hosts.

Serbia open up with a match against Turkey tomorrow, followed by a meeting of the other teams later in the evening.

As with the first-round groups, the winners will be decided on a round-robin basis - due to conclude on Sunday (December 15) - and will proceed to the third of the four scheduled pre-qualification stages.

The top-eight nations in the 2019 IIHF men's world rankings have automatically qualified for Beijing 2022.

They are Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, the United States, Germany and Switzerland.

Together with host China and the three qualifiers, they will be seeded according to the 2020 IIHF world rankings.

The three qualifiers will be determined in four stages of the Olympic pre-qualification, culminating with groups in Slovakia, Latvia and Norway scheduled to be held between August 27 and 30 next year.