2011 FINA World Championships Set For This Summer; Catch Them On Universal Sports
3/1/2011 12:00:00 AM
Huntington Beach, Calif, - March 1, 2011 - 2011 is a huge year of competition for the USA Water Polo Senior National Teams. With the Olympic Games a little more than a year away, preparations have begun in earnest with the major competitions getting kick started this summer in Shanghai, China at the FINA World Championships. The World Championships, scheduled for July 16-31 bring together all the aquatic disciplines to the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center.
For USA Water Polo, 2011 will be hard pressed to match the success of the 2009 World Championships held in Rome, Italy. The Men’s Senior National Team reached the brink of their first medal ever in World Championship play with a fourth place finish, while the Women’s Senior National Team capped a historic decade with their third World Championship in ten years, a feat unmatched by any other women’s water polo nation.
Both teams have re-tooled their rosters with a mixture of experience-laden veterans and exciting up and comers. Under the leadership of Men’s Head Coach Terry Schroeder and Women’s Head Coach Adam Krikorian, the USA Water Polo National Teams enter the summer of 2011 poised for continued success. In the interim the Men’s National Team kept up their fourth place ranking in the world by again contending for Gold in the summer of 2010 at the FINA World League Super Final and FINA World Cup. The Women’s National Team continued their amazing run of excellence claiming yet another FINA World League Super Final title and then winning Gold at the FINA World Cup, their first such honor in 31 years.
The men of USA Water Polo look at Shanghai as a great opportunity since this championship holds an invitation to the Olympic Games for the three podium finishers. In addition to securing a trip to London, a top three finish would also bring a medal at the FINA World Championships, a feat never before accomplished by the US. The women of USA Water Polo see Shanghai as the ultimate preparation for their Olympic qualifying attempts. While even a first place result in China won’t secure a spot in the Olympic Games, it does provide much needed competition to prepare for the Pan American Games, set for October in Guadalajara, Mexico. It is this event where the women have their first chance to qualify for London, an opportunity they will spend nearly all of 2011 preparing for.
As for the 13 men and 13 women who ultimately will make up the teams in Shanghai, those are still to be decided. Both teams are undergoing training camps and evaluation workouts to determine their final rosters. Regardless of the 26 athletes chosen, whether they are fighting for an Olympic berth or setting the stage for the year’s most important challenge, the 14th edition of the FINA World Championships can’t be overlooked.
The 2011 FINA World Championships will be broadcast in the US on Universal Sports. If you have AT&T U-verse, DirecTV, or Dish Network as your TV provider, you currently don’t have Universal Sports. Be sure to visit www.iwantuniversalsports.com to tell your TV provider “I Want Universal Sports” and request that your carrier adds the network in time for you to enjoy this summer’s World Championships. For all other TV providers, you can find Universal Sports channel listings by checking out: http://www.universalsports.com/tv-listings/Zip_Code_Finder.html.
National Teams