Men Water Polo at the Summer Olympics: Nations participation

Water polo is a sport developed in the 19th century. It made its debut in the 1900 Paris Summer Olympics, but only for men and it would take another 100 years for the women events to feature in a summer Olympics edition. Since its debut, the sport did not receive consistent number of participating nations with team number fluctuating from the lows of 4 nations to the highs of 21 nations. This remained so until the 1976 Montreal’s Summer Olympics, when a standard number of 12 men teams was first established and has remained so to today.

Despite making its debut in 1900, water polo was a demonstration sport in the Missouri’s St Louis Summer Olympics of 1904, however its demonstration status died with the 3rd edition of the Summer Olympics; that 1904 summer edition.

A total of 49 nations have participated in the Summer Olympics water polo sport. Starting on a low note because only 4 nations participating in the 1900 Summer Olympics. These nations that participated in the 1900 edition are host France, Belgium, Germany and Team GB.

The number of participating nations remained the same like the 1900, with only 4 nations taking place in the 1908 Summer Olympics held in London. These 4 nations were all from Europe; the host, Team GB, Belgium, Netherlands and Sweden and this would mark the editions with the lowest participating teams in the Summer Olympics Water Polo sport.

In the first ever Sweden held Summer Olympics; the Stockholm 1912, the water polo sport participating nations grew by two to six and this number would double to 12 nations in the 1920 summer editions, this is the edition that took place 2 years after the end of Second World War and was hosted by Belgium’s Antwerp City.

In the 1924 Summer Olympics, this was the second edition of the Games to be held by the France’ Capital City; Paris, a total of 13 nations managed to have a team participating in Water Polo. The 1928 edition had 14 nations taking part in the water polo for men. However this high number of participating nation suffered a blow in the subsequent Los Angeles Summer Olympics of 1932, when the number dropped to a low of only 5 nations.

Came the controversial 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin during the Nazi rule and there were 16 nation’s teams fighting it out in the water polo sport and this trend would see two more nations participate in the second London Summer Olympics of 1948; water polo number of participating nations was 18.

The 1952 Summer Olympics, the second in the Scandinavian city; Finland’s Helsinki went to the Olympics history as the edition with the highest participating nations in the water polo sport. The participants passed the 20 mark for the first time with 21 nations taking part in this edition. It’s without the doubt the Helsinki Summer Olympics of 1952 that has recorded the highest number of teams compared to all other summer editions.

From the highs of the 1952 Helsinki Summer edition of 21 nations the participating nations in this sport went down to less than half in the following Melbourne 1956 Summer Olympics with only 10 nations sending a team. However, the number was 16 nations in the Rome’s 1960 Summer Olympics but dropped to the lowest of 4 nations in the Tokyo 1964. Mexico 1968 Summer Olympics witnessed 16 nations take part in the water polo sport and remained 16 nations for the last time in the Summer Olympics history in the subsequent Munich 1972. In the 1976 Montreal; Canada edition of the Summer Olympics, the number was 12 nations and this has not changed since then. From Montreal in 1976 to Rio de Janeiro in 2016 Summer Olympics, 40 years down the line, the number of men’s event in the Summer Olympics has remained 12 nations. This has been so for a record 10 editions of the games and it will be the same for the 11th time in the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.

There is no way of summarizing the nation’s participation in water polo than to use a table, please find such a table below.

Olympics Edition	Host City	Host Country	Host Continent	Year	Number of Water Polo teams/nations
2	Paris	France	Europe	1900	4
3	St. Louis	USA	North America	1904	Demonstration Sport
4	London	United Kingdom	Europe	1908	4
5	Stockholm	Sweden	Europe	1912	6
6	Antwerp	Belgium	Europe	1920	12
7	Paris	France	Europe	1924	13
8	Amsterdam	Netherlands	Europe	1928	14
9	Los Angeles	USA	North America	1932	5
10	Berlin	Germany	Europe	1936	16
11	London	United Kingdom	Europe	1948	18
12	Helsinki	Finland	Europe	1952	21
13	Melbourne	Australia	Oceania	1956	10
14	Rome	Italy	Europe	1960	16
15	Tokyo	Japan	Asia	1964	3
16	Mexico City	Mexico	Central America	1968	16
17	Munich	Germany	Europe	1972	16
18	Montreal	Canada	North America	1976	12
19	Moscow	Soviet Union (Russia)	Europe	1980	12
20	Los Angeles	USA	North America	1984	12
21	Seoul	South Korea	Asia	1988	12
22	Barcelona	Spain	Europe	1992	12
23	Atlanta	USA	North America	1996	12
24	Sydney	Australia	Oceania	2000	12
25	Athens	Greece	Europe	2004	12
26	Beijing	China	Asia	2008	12
27	London	United Kingdom	Europe	2012	12
28	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	South America	2016	12

 

With the balance of participating nations settling at 12, we hope that it can only increase in future but not decline. See you at Barra de Tijuca’s, Maria Lenk Aquatic Center, where 12 men teams and 8 women teams will fight it for the water polo sport medal glory in the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics from the 6th of August to the 20th of August.