Neither Australia nor New Zealand participated in the two recent junior world water polo events as the travel restrictions, medical considerations and quarantining on return made it impossible.

Australia, being such a vast continent, has seen many of its internal State borders closed to other States and has witnessed multiple cancellations of national events.

Water Polo Australia’s General Manager Performance, Charles Turner (pictured), spoke of the difficulty in getting international competition for the Olympic teams before Tokyo 2020, which reflected on the decision not to send teams to the junior events.

“WPA did a tremendous amount of work to try and provide competition for the senior teams prior to Tokyo, working with medical experts, but in the end our medical staff and finally the women’s team would not travel overseas. With this experience as a guide, it was agreed by WPA that competition for junior teams in a COVID-19 world presented an unacceptable risk.”

The pandemic also affected domestic and international competition. “The restrictions placed on the teams from Government (quarantine issues), WPA insisting on players being fully vaccinated prior to overseas travel, risk-averse medical staff and athletes, meant that the Stingers had not played an international match for 20 months leading into Tokyo. The Sharks were little better, although we did manage to get them to a training camp with the United States in Hawaii before Tokyo, however, they also had not played for 20 months.

“Domestically, most athletes competed in a shortened (COVID-interrupted ) AWL (Australian Water Polo League) early in 2020 and some local club competition in their home States in 2021. The AWL was cancelled in 2021, however, a five-day tournament was hastily arranged during Easter in Sydney where the majority of the national team players participated. WPA has had to cancel almost all competition in 2021, including State championships. We are hoping to reinvigorate competition in 2022 (Covid permitting).”

The Tokyo results may lead to funding difficulties, he said. “WPA has some understanding of a potential reduction in funding, particularly for the men’s programme, but the women’s programme has also been targeted. We hope that because very few Aussie teams achieved what they had aspired to, the Government will understand the mitigating circumstances for the performances in Tokyo.”

Across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand, the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the sport.

New Zealand Water Polo National Events Manager Fabian Wanrooij (pictured) said: “We were able to reschedule all but four events in 2020 (we had to cancel the 80-plus-team North/South Island Secondary Schools’ Championships, the 60-plus-team New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Championships and the National Water Polo League) there was no doubt it had financially impacted our members, which is a big issue for water polo in New Zealand due to the sport being almost always user-pay, with little funding.

 

“The fourth major event we had to cancel was the Pan Pacific Youth Festival, a biennial staple in our events calendar. It was shaping up to be even bigger than 2018, when we had 161 entries from Australia, Canada, the USA, South Africa, New Caledonia and New Zealand. Teams from Thailand and Singapore had also registered interest in attending the 2020 Pan Pacific Youth Festival. We hope to be able to bring this beloved Pacific-wide event back in 2023.”

Last year, the pandemic led to reshaping the infrastructure because of financial difficulties. “We’ve lost three out of five full-time NZWP positions. Among the positions lost, was that of High Performance Manager (Kurt Goldsworthy). With New Zealand’s stringent quarantining procedures, our national teams have been unable to travel and attend international competitions since March 2020,” Fabian said.

Kiwi women’s head coach Angie Winstanley-Smith (above) said: “It started with the cancellation of the Olympic qualifiers early in 2020, which knocked the momentum of our young women’s team after the Gwangju campaign.”

Not attending the youth worlds last year had a big effect on players’ morale. “With the world youth group, we had been preparing for four years and already had six of the girls play at a world event prior. We had toured Europe in 2019 as preparation, too, so this would have been our best prepared group.

“Leading into 2021, we didn’t attend the Olympic qualifiers again — a huge disappointment — as it is with the juniors this year,” she said. “It’s been two and a half years  since we had an international game!

“We have 18 girls in the USA college system who have been affected with travel — staying away for Christmases, etc — due to the hotel quarantine here.”

Angie, like everyone else in Oceania, is hoping for a brighter 2023 with the FINA World Championships and the University Games initial targets.