The women's
water polo
Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...
tournament at the
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
was held from 30 July to 9 August at the
Water Polo Arena.
Teams from eight nations competed in the tournament and have been seeded into two groups for the preliminary round. A total of 24 games were played, 12 of them in the preliminary round.
Format
The tournament featured eight teams, separated into two groups of four teams. Each team played the other three teams in its pool once in a round-robin format. All eight teams advanced to the quarterfinal stage where they were seeded and played against a team from the other group.
The winners of the quarterfinal games moved on to the semifinals, while the quarterfinal losers played a series of classification games. The semifinal winners played in the gold medal game, while the losers played each other for the bronze.
Preliminary round
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
Group A
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Group B
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Final round
;Final bracket
;5th place bracket
Quarterfinals
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
5th–8th place classification
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
Semifinals
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
7th place match
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
5th place match
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
Bronze medal match
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
Gold medal match
All times are BST (UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
).
Ranking and statistics
Final ranking
Multi-time Olympians
Four-time Olympian(s): 3 players
* :
Sofia Konukh
Sofia Evgenevna Konukh (russian: Софья Евгеньевна Конух, born 9 March 1980 in Chelyabinsk) is a Russian water polo player, who won the bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic women's tournament in history. ...
* :
Heather Petri
Heather Danielle Petri (born June 13, 1978) is an American water polo player, who won the silver medal with the US women's national team at the 2000 Summer Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, a silver medal in Beijing in 2008 ...
,
Brenda Villa
Brenda Villa (born April 18, 1980) is an accomplished American water polo player. She is the most decorated athlete in the world of women’s water polo. Villa was named Female Water Polo Player of the Decade for 2000-2009 by the FINA Aquatics Wo ...
Three-time Olympian(s): 6 players
* :
Kate Gynther
Kate Maree Gynther (born 5 July 1982) is an Australian water polo player. She plays for the Brisbane Barracudas in the National Water Polo League. She represented Australia as a member of the women's senior national team at the 2004 Summer O ...
,
Melissa Rippon
Melissa Alison Rippon (born 20 January 1981 in Sydney) is an Australian water polo player. Her sister is Rebecca Rippon and her step-sister is Kate Gynther, both of whom have been members of Australia's national water polo team and competed at ...
* :
Rita Drávucz
Rita Drávucz (born 14 April 1980 in Szolnok) is a water polo player from Hungary, who competed for her native country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China and the 2012 Summer Olympics in ...
* :
Tania Di Mario
Tania Di Mario (born 4 May 1979) is an Italian female water polo forward, who won the gold medal with the Women's National Team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, and the silver at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She was al ...
,
Elena Gigli
Elena Gigli (born 9 July 1985 in Empoli) is a female water polo goalkeeper from Italy, who won the gold medal with the Women's National Team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. She was the top goalkeeper at the 2012 Olympics, with 56 ...
(GK),
Anikó Pelle
Anikó Pelle (born 28 September 1978 in Budapest, Hungary) is an international water polo player from Hungary, who played for the University of Southern California from 1999 to 2002, and on the Hungarian National Team in the 2004 Summer Olympi ...
Multiple medalists
Four-time Olympic medalist(s): 2 players
* :
Heather Petri
Heather Danielle Petri (born June 13, 1978) is an American water polo player, who won the silver medal with the US women's national team at the 2000 Summer Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, a silver medal in Beijing in 2008 ...
,
Brenda Villa
Brenda Villa (born April 18, 1980) is an accomplished American water polo player. She is the most decorated athlete in the world of women’s water polo. Villa was named Female Water Polo Player of the Decade for 2000-2009 by the FINA Aquatics Wo ...
Top goalscorers
Medallists
Awards
The women's all-star team was announced on 9 August 2012.
;Most Valuable Player
*
Maggie Steffens
Margaret Ann Steffens (born June 4, 1993) is an American water polo player. She won the gold medal with the United States at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, Steffens set a new Olympic record for the most numb ...
(21 goals)
;Media All-Star Team
* Goalkeeper
**
Elizabeth Armstrong (53 saves)
* Field players
**
Barbara Bujka (centre forward, left-handed, 12 goals)
**
Anni Espar
Anna Espar Llaquet (born 8 January 1993) is a Spanish water polo player who won the gold medal at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona. She also won the silver medal at the 2012 and 2020 Summer Olympics.
College career
Espar joined the Uni ...
(15 goals)
**
Holly Lincoln-Smith
Holly Jane Lincoln-Smith (born 26 March 1988) is an Australian water polo centre forward. Her sister is skeleton competitor Emma Lincoln-Smith. They are the first set of Australian siblings where one competed at the Summer Olympics and the oth ...
(centre back, 5 goals)
**
Jennifer Pareja
Jennifer Pareja Lisalde (born 8 May 1984) is a former Spanish water polo player who won the gold medal at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, being named ''Most Valuable Player'' of the event.
She was named 2013 Best Female Water Polo ...
(12 goals, 21 sprints won)
**
Maggie Steffens
Margaret Ann Steffens (born June 4, 1993) is an American water polo player. She won the gold medal with the United States at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, Steffens set a new Olympic record for the most numb ...
(21 goals)
**
Nicola Zagame (12 goals, 4 sprints won)
See also
*
Water polo at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament
The men's tournament of water polo at the 2012 Summer Olympics at London, Great Britain, began on 29 July and lasted until 12 August 2012. All games were held at the Water Polo Arena.
Teams from twelve nations competed in the tournament and were ...
References
Sources
*
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
documents on the
FINA
FINA (french: Fédération internationale de natation, en, International Swimming Federation, link=yes) (to be renamed as World Aquatics by ) is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administer ...
br>
website
*
Official Results Book – 2012 Olympic Games – Diving, Swimming, Synchronised Swimming, Water Poloarchive
(pp. 284–507)
* Water polo on the Olympedi
website
*
Water polo at the 2012 Summer Olympicswomen's tournament
* Water polo on the Sports Reference
Sports Reference, LLC, is an American company which operates several sports-related websites, including Sports-Reference.com, Baseball-Reference.com for baseball, Basketball-Reference.com for basketball, Hockey-Reference.com for ice hockey, Pro- ...
br>website
*
Water polo at the 2012 Summer Games
(archived)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Water polo at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Women's tournament
Women's tournament
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...
2012 in women's water polo
Women's water polo competitions
Women's water polo in the United Kingdom
Women's events at the 2012 Summer Olympics