Splash and burn — Swimming SA’s selection criteria leave water polo teams high and dry at World Cup

10 Nov 2024

Swimming SA has decided to only select players for the Water Polo World Cup from teams that showed intent to participate in national championships, despite the event being cancelled.

Swimming South Africa’s (SSA’s) handicapping of water polo has continued with its decision to send severely understrength teams to the World Aquatics Water Polo World Cup.

SSA has announced the selection criteria for the World Cup division 2 taking place in December in Istanbul, Turkey.

“To be eligible for selection, an athlete must have intended to participate in the Senior National Water Polo Championships in March 2024 with a team that was registered and entered into the event,” reads the form that was sent out by SSA on 31 October.

This means that any water polo athlete belonging to a club or province that failed to confirm its attendance at nationals would not be eligible for national selection.

It sounds fairly reasonable. However, nationals didn’t take place this year.

Read more: Troubled waters — SA water polo feels the lack of love from governing body

The tournament, initially meant to be held in March, was cancelled a month before it was scheduled to get under way because only three men’s and women’s teams had committed to attending the Currie Cup tournament in East London.

A maximum of 10 men’s and 10 women’s teams are allowed to register for nationals. These include club teams in a province, as well as provincial or district teams.

Because only three clubs registered to participate in the championships this year, SSA’s selection pool for the World Cup is limited to the 39 – men’s and women’s – players who showed intent of playing at nationals, regardless of their skill level.

That number is the maximum number of players available, depending on whether they fulfil the rest of the criteria.

Athletes are expected to fork out R54,500 for the opportunity to represent their country at the Water Polo World Cup after being given five weeks’ notice that they will be taking part.

This means that less than 30% of the usual pool of athletes in the national men’s and women’s side are eligible for selection to the World Cup.

The three men’s sides that are eligible for selection are Rondebosch Meerkats, KwaZulu-Natal and High Performance Polo from East London. It means South African water polo skipper Lwazi Madi is ineligible for selection as his club, the SACS Old Boys, did not commit to attend nationals.

The three women’s teams are Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and High Performance Polo.

Read more: Water polo faction lobbies to break away from erring Swimming South Africa

The national women’s team for the World Cup was announced on 7 November. The 13-player squad only contains players from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and High Performance Polo. There was one Western Province player in the team, who represented Western Province at the under-18 Currie Cup earlier this year, among the non-travelling reserves.

No coach, assistant coach or team manager has been announced alongside the squad. Athletes are expected to fork out R54,500 for the opportunity to represent their country at the Water Polo World Cup after being given five weeks’ notice that they will be taking part.

No nationals

A source in water polo South Africa told Daily Maverick that SSA’s decision to withdraw the men’s and women’s teams from the 2024 Paris Olympics was the leading cause of players not registering for nationals.

South Africa’s men’s and women’s water polo teams qualified for the Olympic Games as Africa’s best, but SSA had set its own internal qualification standard for the teams of finishing in the top 12 of the World Aquatics Swimming World Championships in Doha in February.

Expecting either South African side to be competitive at the World Cup is akin to expecting a miracle.

Three days after the completion of the World Championships, at which the national women’s team finished 14th and the men 15th, nationals were cancelled.

“A lot of players felt they would spend another 10-12K to go to nationals and there was no reward,” the source said. “Their [dangled] carrot had been stolen.”

Each team pays R11,500 to participate at nationals. All participation and accommodation costs are the responsibility of the athletes.

Not improving

Sending weakened squads to the World Cup does nothing to improve the performances of the national side.

Speaking to players about SSA’s decision not to send either national side to the Olympics, a common theme emerged that players felt not enough was being done to prepare for international competitions, including the Swimming World Championships.

Only SSA-scheduled and authorised team training camps are permitted. This year no men’s camps and only one women’s camp took place.

The World Cup is fewer than six weeks away. The teams have not met up yet, trained together or done any fitness assessment. This is besides the strongest possible teams not being able to participate.

Expecting either South African side to be competitive at the World Cup is akin to expecting a miracle. Australia, for example, whose women’s side took the silver medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, outline the importance of form and recent showings in its national selection policy.

“[Selected athletes must show] consistency and quality of performances for a period of up to 36 months against teams ranked in the top 10, according to the Fina World rankings at the time of the performance,” the policy reads.

South Africa’s selection criteria, conversely, exclude players from being selected based on a tournament that didn’t take place. The criteria can nevertheless be amended. “The SSA executive committee reserves the right to amend these criteria and will ensure circulation of such amended criteria,” South Africa’s selection criteria read.

This means the exclusion of 70% of water polo players can be changed to afford all athletes eligibility to compete at the World Cup. But, based on how late the squads have been announced and the lack of training the teams have done to date, South Africa’s chances of success won’t immediately skyrocket.

Sending a second-string team to the Water Polo World Cup does nothing for the players’ confidence or the teams’ progress.

By the time of publication SSA had not responded to queries from Daily Maverick. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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South Africa

No nationals

Not improving