from:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/waterpolo/news/newsid=252724.html#ten+reasons+watch+u+s+mens+water+polo+team1) The Hungarians are two-time defending gold medalists. In fact, Hungary has won more gold medals in water polo (eight) than any other nation and has earned one-third of the medals handed out.
2) The United States has won one gold medal in water polo, but it was basically an intramural ribbon. At the 1904 Games in St. Louis only three teams, all from the United States, entered the water polo competition. The Americans swept the medals (Well, I'll be!). So while America may be hungry for a gold medal, Hungary is not ... hungry ... for a gold medal.
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3) If you were paying close attention to that first factoid, you noticed that eight is one-third of 24. Beijing is only the 26th Summer Games held. Except for the inaugural Olympics held in Athens in 1896, water polo has been part of every Summer program. It is the oldest continuously contested team sport in the Olympics. So, like the Games themselves, it has tradition on its side.
4) The U.S.A. has not won a medal (it was silver) since 1988. The captain of that team was Terry Schroeder, who is now the coach.
5) If Schroeder's face -- and arms, legs and torso -- looks familiar to you, it should. Schroeder was the model for the nude male statue that stands at the entrance of the Los Angeles Coliseum. That's confidence.
6)
Gergely Kiss, besides sounding like something you experienced at your first girl-boy party, is the leader of the Hungarian squad. In the gold-medal matches in 2000 and 2004 Kiss was Hungary's leading scorer. And when the 6-6 lefty takes to the pool, he is one big, wet Gergely Kiss.
7) Before you ask where the horses are -- as I did -- here's an explanation behind the sport's name. Water polo, invented in England in the late 19th century, was first contested with players riding small wooden barrels made to resemble horses and swinging at the ball with a mallet.
8) At 6-1, U.S. captain
Tony Azevedo is the second-shortest player on the team but inarguably the best. Azevedo, 26, was a four-time winner of the Peter J. Cutino Award (water polo's Heisman) while at Stanford, and Beijing marks his third Olympic Games.
9) Water polo players get the girls. In Paris in 1924 Johnny Weissmuller led the U.S. to its first legitimate medal, a bronze, then went on to play Tarzan -- perhaps the only role in Hollywood at the time that did not require him to expand his wardrobe. Current U.S. team member
Peter Hudnut was Cosmopolitan's "California Bachelor" of 2007.
10) As with icebergs and digestion, in water polo all the real action takes place below the surface. Remember that scene in Jaws 2 when Sheriff Brody starts yelling "Shark!" and waving his sidearm, and there's a below-water shot of the panoply of limbs and tumult? That's water polo.
