Lest we forget in our fervor with the swimming, there are actually 5 FINA disciplines that will be competed at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai. And since there’s a ton of overlap between water polo players and swimmers, we thought some of you might be interested to see the water polo groupings for those same championships.
Men’s competition
Group A
Hungary
Kazakhstan
Montenegro
Spain
Group B
Serbia
Romania
China
Australia
Group C
Brazil
Japan
Croatia
Canada
Group D
USA
Italy
Germany
South Africa
Group A is clearly the “Group of Death” in this event. It features the gold and silver medalists from the 2010 FINA World Super League (Serbia and Montenegro, respectively), as well as a loaded Spanish team, who were FINA semi-finalists. Even the 4th team in the group, Kazakhstan, has high-quality, as the 3rd-place team in the Asian qualifier.
The USA has a relatively easy trip through group play. Of the four teams, only South Africa made it to the Super Final, and that was only by way of dominating a weak African region. They proceeded to get pounded by a combined score of 107-12 in 6 matches at the International Championship. Italy is not to be underestimated, as their only loss in Super League qualifying was a 6-5 nailbiter to Montenegro, but in terms of the group stage, this is a very favorable matchup for the Americans, who are the defending Olympic silver medalists.
Group C is fairly well-balanced, including Super League bronze-medalists Croatia. Canada built some momentum headed into the 2009 World Championships, where they achieved their highest finish ever (8th), but didn’t even participate in the qualifying rounds for the 2010 Super League. Brazil is not a bad program, but they were handled twice by the Americans last year. Croatia is the only potential medalists I see out of this group.
Group B will be tough to get out of, with 3 strong, and 1 above-average, squads. Serbia is the favorites of the tournament, as the defending FINA World Cup and Super League champions. They’ve had some struggles internationally since their political split from the former Yugoslovia, but seem to have emerged again as the best team in the world headed towards London. It will be no easy task though, and any of the other 3 teams could emerge from group play to join them. I favor Romania to survive in what would be a bit of an upset over Australia.
Women’s
Group A
Netherlands
Kazakhstan
USA
Hungary
Group B
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Uzbekistan
Group C
Brazil
Greece
Russia
Spain
Group D
Italy
South Africa
Cuba
China
On the women’s side, it was the American women who got the tough draw. If they can survive, they have to be considered the favorites, having won 3 out of the last 4 World Championships and last year’s FINA World Cup. They will ride the back of their stud goalie Betsy Armstrong, who was the FINA World Player of the Year last season. But they will face a tough group including Super League Super Finalists the Netherlands and Hungary, both of whom made it out of group play at the 2009 World Championships. The Netherlands are the team that defeated the Americans at the 2008 Olympics in the gold-medal match.
The women’s tournament is much deeper, and there are a much larger number of teams who can compete for medals. The two teams that have given the Americans fits over the last two years are the Russians and Canadians. The most difficult group on this side of the bracket is probably Group C, that features Russia (the bronze medalists from 2009), Greece (who they beat in that match), Brazil, and Spain (who has played tough matches with both Greece and the Netherlands in the last year).
