USA Women’s U18 team lost to Greece in the semifinals 8:13.
US Women finished fourth, losing to Hungary 13:14 in the bronze medal game.
The competitors are catching up. We are lucky to have NCAA water polo, though.
Spain won the Olympics, 18U, and 16U World Championships this year — sure seems like we need to be taking a look at what they are doing to create this culture of success.
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European Polo Nations more than caught up if USWP does not make any adjustments/moves to be back at the top of women’s waterpolo they will be left behind and will play for 3-6 place!
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It’s a small sport so a few new players make a huge impact. Overall, the USA women’s performance over the last twenty years ranks among our most dominant teams. The European clubs can obviously play incredible youth girls up, but the NCAA remains a proven training ground on the women’s side, and together with our excellent coaching the record speaks for itself.
When I started mentioning 4–5 years ago (on the old platform) that Europeans were catching up, the comments were mostly dismissed with a similar rhetoric.
And now look at the record of the last several years… USA Women’s Water Polo is in a good shape thanks to NCAA and abundance of talented kids but recycling the old “everything is great” argument is hardly helpful.
Twenty years ago, women’s water polo was pretty weak in Spain, for example. Their national team had not finished higher than 7th at the Worlds until 2013, they did not qualify for Olympics till 2012, they did not get their first European championship medal till 2008. In the last 4 years, they won European Championship in 2020 and 2022, and finished second in 2024. They finished second at the World championship in 2023 and third in 2024, they won the Olympics this summer and finished second three years ago. Their youth team’s record has been probably even more impressive.
NCAA was a huge difference 10 years ago, and it is still a big bonus for us, but times are changing.
P.S. USA results from the last four U20 World Championships:
2023 5th
2021 DNP
2019 6th
2017 5th
I did not have time to check U18 results, but we just finished 4th both last week and the previous time around afaik.
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Very informative post. It was inevitable that the incredible US women’s winning streak would come to an end, but Spain’s history is insightful. Agree the women’s college game ups the national team. I guess it comes down to a) identifying and attracting talented girls to the sport and b) figuring out how to develop them in the absence of a club system. Assuming the NCAA game develops senior national members, and great national team coaching, what else can be done within NCAA boundaries between HS - college - and professionalism that borrows attributes of the European system?
This is a good question. It is always harder to give constructive input than criticism 
I know one thing: if I had been in charge of women’s water polo in a country with rich traditions of success on the men’s’ side but mediocre record on the women’s’ side (say Serbia or Croatia) I would have studied Spain’s approach 24 hours a day and probably tried to imitate it. It is somewhat scary to think that we might have to deal with excellent Serbian and Croatian National teams, in addition to the current strong competitors, say in 10–15 years.
USA is a different case, obviously, but we also have to learn from the best and, until the LA Games, whether we like it or not, we are not the best (yet). Most excellent Spanish players come from Catalonia (think Southern California in our case). There must be some similarities that should be noted and used to strengthen our U16/U18 training.
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The biggest thing that I have noticed is that the top U16/U18 Spain teams are filled with girls who are playing in the Champions League alongside their Olympic level players.
As far as I know, very few of our top age group players get to play consistent competition against Olympic level players until they get to college.
So my guess is the edge right now for Spain mostly centers around the access to higher level play at a very young age.
Queralt Anton Boixadera is probably the most exciting young player and she plays for CN Sant Andreu alongside multiple Spanish Olympians.