Tonight’s World Aquatics Water Polo World Cup Finals in Sydney will feature a Paris Olympics semi-final rematch, as the Australian Women’s Water Polo team takes on the USA for a spot in the gold medal playoff.
Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, which famously hosted the first ever Olympic women’s water polo match at the Sydney 2000 Games, will once again see Australia take on the USA, with the home side hoping to repeat that winning performance.
The Ord Minnett Aussie Stingers will draw inspiration from that gold medal winning Sydney 2000 side, with many of the original team members in the stands cheering them on, while the current squad wears replica Sydney 2000 Olympic swimmers.
They won’t just be looking to secure a berth in Sunday’s gold medal playoff. They’ll be counting on the home crowd advantage to help get them there.
The Aussies have hosted the USA as part of a pre-tournament training camp, which Paris Olympic silver medalist Charlize Andrews believes will help their preparation.
“We have versed the USA quite a bit in the last few weeks…we had a training camp with them before this so we’re quite familiar with them but it’s going to be a very exciting game especially in front of a home crowd. It’s going to be fun.
“After the first game against Italy, with the support we had, it lifted us so to be able to have that in the semi-final is going to be so amazing,” she said.
In terms of changes the side will look to make following the first match, Andrews said they won’t look to do too much differently.
“We don’t want to over complicate things, we’ll watch some footage and go through a few things to help us prepare but we don’t want to overthink it – we just want to play our game and play freely like we do,” she said.
Fellow Paris 2024 teammate, Sienna Hearn, echoed Andrews sentiment and said the team will look to channel the crowd’s energy.
“I think it just comes down to staying in the moment playing our style of water polo and not getting caught up in their style.”
“The atmosphere [in Sydney] is so special for all of us and makes us want to try even harder for our friends and family,” she said.
