Water Polo Fight

Water Polo is an aggressive sport and I love it. It was once named one of the bloodiest sports in the Olympics because people would come out of the water with broken ribs, bleeding eyes, cheeks, face, and a host of other almost inconceivable injuries from what looks like on the surface a placid sport.

In reality it is a combination of swimming, soccer and basketball, plus wrestling, boxing and mugging. The players are phenomenal athletes who perform amazing feats of speed, grace, stamina and ball-handling. They also perform amazing feats of kicking, punching, scratching, biting, clawing and choking. And that's just the men. The women are also fond of tearing each other's bathing suits off.

My first introduction to the sports aggressiveness came during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Here an underwater camera captured underwater pictures and underwater video which graphically displayed a battle zone where every dirty trick was on show to us the viewer. It was truly amazing. Here on our TV set and on millions of others around the world were super fit, highly skilled athletes beating the stuffing out of each other. It made for great television. There were even the occasional what I call water polo oops where a piece of swim suit was ripped, shredded or pulled from the body. I remember clearly my young teenage son who was and is an absolute sports buff exclaiming loudly "Hey that guy just got wedgied big time." I think the censors then put a clamp on the underwater imagery being shown but it was too late. We all had seen just how aggressive the sport was.

I said water polo was aggressive but that seriously sells the sport short. It is more than that, it is a brutal sport.

In water polo, there is even a penalty called "brutality." Brutality - A brutality is called when a player kicks or strikes (or attempts to kick or strike) an opponent or official with malicious intent. What other sport feels the need to have a rule called Brutality?

The sport's brutality is comparable to full contact sports such boxing, rugby and karate. The only difference is that the contact and violence happens under the water where it is difficult for the referees to see and call.

"Every single game we have violence under water that the refs cannot see. It's usually people grabbing our suits. I have had my lips busted open and bleeding, black eyes, and my eye busted open. Sometimes people have to get stitches. With the girls especially, they grab the more sensitive areas and even sometimes with the guys; the guards have to protect their sensitive areas. I heard of this one guy who had [his genitals] busted wide open, so they had to take him back to the hospital right from the game. A guy from the Hungarian team broke his nose in three places and got a major concussion. People try to do this when the refs aren't watching. If someone is being really brutal to you, you have to wait it out," till the ref is not watching. Then you get them back.

"Last year I broke a girl's nose in 3 places... it basically exploded, when she came up from underwater there was blood all over her face. The worst part of it was that it was an accident. I was swiping for the ball while she was lunging for it... it was pretty bloody. I've gotten poked in the eye pretty bad...the white of my eye turned all red/bloody for a few days. I've dislocated my shoulder, broken my nose twice, gotten kicked in the throat, gotten a concussion, etc. I have plenty of scars on my hands and arms from girls' fingernails. It's the most brutal sport that I've ever played,.."

But the sports' participants love it and even when quizzed on the dangers of the sport and the risk of injury it is "just a minor consideration". For example one athlete when asked about the potential for injuries responded by saying that "..most water polo injuries are minor, they're mostly superficial -- broken fingers, broken noses, teeth, jaws, eardrums, stuff like that." Which has got to tell us something about water polo and the people who participate. It's a sport played by folks who feel that broken noses and busted jaws are "superficial."