Water polo - A action packed exhausting sport

Water Polo started in the 19th century as an aquatic version of rugby that was played in rivers and lakes. As the sport became more popular and the game was more developed it has become today a sport that is very similar to Handball. The sport of Water Polo has been on the Olympic programme since 1900 Paris games and the Women's event was introduced during the 2000 Sydney games.

The sport is played in a 2m deep pool that's 20m wide and 30m long for the Men and 25m long for the Women. There are two teams of seven on the field at the same time and the aim of the game is to put a ball in the opposing teams goal scoring more points than the opposing team. Each match is divided into four periods of eight minutes, at the start of each period it starts with a rush to the middle for the ball and each team has only 30 seconds to score before they have to hand over the ball to the other team. Players swim up to several kilometers during a game in order to win making stamina an extremely important part of the game.

In London there is two gold medals up for grabs, one for the Men's and one for the Women's competition. The teams are split into two groups based on rankings where they play against all teams in the group. The best teams then move forward to the quarter finals and the finals. The better you do in the group round the easier your way to the finals will be.

So onto favourites. In the Men's competition the competition is very stiff with several teams gunning for the gold medal. Hungary has won the past three Olympic games, but they haven't medaled in the past two World Championships since. Italy the current World Champions will be looking for a win feeding of their stellar performance last year at the WC. However other countries like Serbia, Croatia and Spain are never far behind in the fight for the medals so this competition can go either way

In the Women's competition the fight for the gold will be between several countries as well. USA is a clear favourite to take a medal as they have done in the past three games, but they were knocked out of the podium in last years WC. Other favourites include Australia, China and Russia who always place high, however the big upset is the World Champions Greece failed to even qualify for the games and will not be participating at all which is a big shame.

The competition in this sport where almost all the countries have the ability to win promises some exciting moments indeed. Usually in team sports it's easier to predict winners, but in this sport it's all up in the air and these games are going to be electryfing to watch.