{"id":578809,"date":"2024-02-23T14:06:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T21:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=578809"},"modified":"2024-02-23T14:06:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T21:06:31","slug":"south-africa-turns-down-olympic-water-polo-bids-romania-men-and-canada-women-claim-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/south-africa-turns-down-olympic-water-polo-bids-romania-men-and-canada-women-claim-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa Turns Down Olympic Water Polo Bids; Romania (Men) and Canada (Women) Claim Spots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>South Africa Turns Down Olympic Water Polo Bids; Romania (Men) and Canada (Women) Claim Spots<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a surprising development, Swimming South Africa (SSA) pulled its men\u2019s and women\u2019s water polo teams from the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. SSA chief executive <\/span><b>Shaun Adriaanse<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> told the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2024-02-20-swimming-sa-dashes-water-polo-players-paris-olympics-dreams-despite-teams-qualifying\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that a minimum 12th-place finish at the recent World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar was necessary to consider both teams making the trip to the French capital.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Doha, the South African men finished 15th out of 16 teams while the women finished 14th. The Romanian men\u2019s team, which had not qualified for an Olympic Games since 2012, and the Canadian women\u2019s team\u2014a participant in the 2020 Tokyo Games\u2014were both selected to replace the South Africans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reports suggest that the SSA announced their decision before notifying athletes, many of whom first heard of the decision through social media. Commentators cited a lack of financial support for water polo and general apathy for the sport in South Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Keanan Hemmonsbey<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> reported that selected players for the World Champs were required to pay approximately R20,000 from their own pockets for flights and accommodation in Doha, as the sport remains largely self-funded.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">South Africa\u2019s men\u2019s and women\u2019s polo teams participated in the 2020 Tokyo Games. Both sides finished last in their bracket, with the women 10th and the men 12th.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa Turns Down Olympic Water Polo Bids; Romania (Men) and Canada (Women) Claim Spots In a surprising development, Swimming South Africa (SSA) pulled its men\u2019s and women\u2019s water polo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4875,"featured_media":578808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[70684,54416],"class_list":["post-578809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-polo","category-world","tag-south-africa-water-polo","tag-water-polo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>South Africa Turns Down Olympic Water Polo Bids<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"South Africa recently turned down Olympic Games bids in water polo for its men and women, allowing Romania and Canada to qualify for Paris.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/south-africa-turns-down-olympic-water-polo-bids-romania-men-and-canada-women-claim-spots\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South Africa Turns Down Olympic Water Polo Bids; 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