Women Water Polo at the Summer Olympics:Participating nations and medalists

While men water polo made its debut in the 1900 Paris Summer Olympics, women event had to wait for another 100 years to feature. Women water polo events made its debut in the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. So far only 13 nations have ever participated from the 2000 edition to the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics with no African team taking part in the women water polo event at any of 5 editions of the Summer Olympics.

2016 Water Polo Olympic Qualification tournament between Netherlands and France

This picture is from Wikipedia under Creative Commons License Teams from Australia, Russia and USA have participated in the all the four previous editions and have qualified for the Rio 2016 women water polo. Each of these three nations have at least won a medal for the same event and maybe they will all win or some of them might in the Rio’s Julio de Lamare Aquatics Centre where the preliminaries will take place and at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium where the post preliminaries matches will be held.

Women Water Polo at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics

Only 6 teams from four continents participated in these inaugural water polo women events. Host’s Team Australia made history by becoming the first nation in the Summer Olympics to win the gold medal, besides it’s the only host nation to have ever won a gold medal in women water polo at a Summer Olympics edition. Maybe Brazil; the host for the 2016 will break this history well it’s only a matter of time before August is here with us. In these games, Team USA took home the Silver Medal while Russia was the Bronze medalists. Somehow, these three inaugural medalists have managed to qualify for all the editions on the water polo for women in the 4 subsequent Summer Olympics editions including the scheduled Rio 2016. Apart from the above mentioned three medalists, other nations that took part in the women water polo at the Sydney Olympics are Canada, Kazakhstan and Netherlands.

Women Water Polo at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics

Water polo featured in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and eight teams made it to these games. These eight nations include the host Greece, who got an automatic qualification, the gold medalist Italy who came for the first time and became the overall winner. Australia, Russia and USA qualified and participated for the second time out of the five they would participate in the future, while Canada and Kazakhstan were also there for a second time and Hungary made its debut in the Summer Olympics women water polo. In the gold medal match, Italy won against host Greece by ten goals to nine, a match that went to extra time and hence, Italy took the gold and the host settled for the silver medal while USA took home the bronze medal after beating the 2000 gold medalist Australia which was placed as the fourth best team.

Women Water Polo at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

The next edition was the Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics and in what had become the routine 8 nations had qualified and were taking part and of course host China had an automatic entry. Australia, Russia and the USA were participating for the third time, while Greece, Hungary and Italy came in for the second time in a row, while Netherlands, though missed the 2004 edition made it for second time had been one of the six teams at the Sydney edition. Netherlands was the gold medalist, while the team USA was the silver medalist. The bronze medal went to Australia. In this edition, 4 of the 8 nations that had qualified came from Europe, while Americas, Asia and Oceania had a slot each. For the third time no African women team participated in the water polo event and this has not changed to date as we all head to Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.

Women Water Polo at the 2012 London Summer Olympics

For the 4th time, women water polo featured in the London 2012 Summer Olympics, with 8 nations from 4 continents sending a team and yet, Africa failed to be represented due to lack of the continents qualification tournament. The water polo events for both men and women too place at the London’s Water Polo Arena and commenced on the 12th of August and ended on the 29th of August. As usual, Team GB had the host’s automatic qualification, while the other 7 teams had to sweat it out in 3 qualifying tournaments. These three tournaments were 2011 Pan Americans games that saw USA qualify, 2012 Asian Water Polo Tournament in which China qualified. Australia qualified and filled the slot for Oceania. At the 2012 Water Polo Qualification Tournament that held in Italy in April that year, 4 more Europe teams qualified. These 4 teams that qualified were Russia, which was participating for the 4th time in row, Spain that made their debut in the women water polo while Hungary and Italy qualified for the third time in a row. In the final medal match, it was Team USA who took the Gold medal, Spain went with the Silver medal while Team Australia won the Bronze, and this was the second time in a row.

Women Water Polo at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics

Eight teams have qualified for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics Women Water Polo, no African team has managed. Australia, Russia and USA are participating for the fifth time in a row, while host Brazil is making its debut. Italy and Hungary are participating for the fourth time, China for the third time while Spain will be competing for the second time. May the best team win.

Below showing how all the nations that have participated

	2000	2004	2008	2012	2016
	Africa	Africa	Africa	Africa	Africa
Continent	None	None	None	None	None
Continent	Americas	Americas	Americas	Americas	Americas
	United States	United States	United States	United States	United States
	Canada	Canada			Brazill (Host)
Continent	Asia	Asia	Asia	Asia	Asia
	Kazakhstan	Kazakhstan	China (Host)	China	China
Continent	Oceania	Oceania	Oceania	Oceania	Oceania
	Australia (Host)	Australia	Australia	Australia	Australia
Continent	Europe	Europe	Europe	Europe	Europe
	Russia	Russia	Russia	Russia	Russia
		Italy	Italy	Italy	Italy
		Greece (Host)	Greece	Great Britain (Host)
		Hungary	Hungary	Hungary	Hungary
	Netherlands	Netherlands		Spain	Spain