For a sport that includes 'brutality' in its lexicon, water polo lives up to its physical reputation, but it isn't all dirty underwater tactics.
The U.S. women’s water polo team, the two-time defending Olympic champions, fell to Hungary 10-9 in pool play on Wednesday in Tokyo.Everywhere at the venue there are reminders that what you are watching is hardly the swimming you might be used to. It’s almost comical that the international governing body, FINA, views it in the same category as swimming, diving and artistic swimming. Water polo, officials say, is kind of like the family member you’d want to party with.
Japan’s Toi Suzuki tries to retrieve the ball as he is held by Greece’s Konstantinos Genidounias during a preliminary round match Thursday. “I did swimming, I did basketball, I did soccer, I did gymnastics, I did dance,” said U.S. player Maggie Steffens. “And water polo was the one that kind of tied all the sports I really loved into one. It has the mental game, the emotional game, the physical game, the endurance. It’s a team sport, which is the only sport I could probably ever do. So that’s really the draw to me, that it kind of took all the aspects of different sports and put it into one.
But “brutality”? That’s probably the most cinematic. It rarely happens and probably won’t with the stakes this high. But in the water and underneath the surface? Be prepared to be bruised. “It’s like playing basketball if there were no refs and guys can hang on you and you’re trying to breathe underwater,” U.S. men’s center forward Alex Obert said.
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