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paintballimpact.com / Sports / the Water Polo pool
Water Polo | The Pool and Player Profile
Water Polo is a game that employs many of the same techniques and tactics as soccer, but in a pool that is 30 meters long and 20 meters wide. At a depth of 1.8 meters, the pool is too deep for players to stand on the bottom, so players must swim and tread water to go to the ball and get in front of players to block shots. Water polo is one of a number of aquatic sports that also include swimming, synchronized swimming, apnea free diving, and diving. Water polo began in its earliest form in the early 18th century and went through a series of reformats to arrive at the format that we see today. Water polo is a sport that favors tremendous lower body strength, strong swimmers, and athletes with strong throwing arms. The Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA) wrote the rules and regulations to the sport that we use today. Like sporting events including artistic gymnastics, baseball, and netball, water polo events have separate games for men and women. Paintball in contrast, is a co-ed sport where the men and women play together on the same team. In this article, we will examine the make-up of the water polo athlete, and the arena and people involved who make sure that these games are played fairly and safely.
The Pool. The water polo pool include all the players, reserve players, referees and other officials that make these games happen. Each team has 1 coach and 13 players, 7 of whom are in the pool at any one time. For the men, the pool is 30 m. long and 20 m wide, with the goals placed just in front of the width ends of the pool. For the women, the pool is 25 meters long, and 17 meters wide. Within the wall of the pool, boundary lines line the pool, held up by colored flotation cylinders. The colored flotation cylinders mark boundary lines such as the penalty zone, 2 meter line, 4 meter line, 7 meter line, and the half distance line. Each section of the pool is marked with different colored boundary floats. The goal line crosses perpendicular to the meter lines. The Goals face one another in the midpoints of the goal lines. The Goals are 3 meters wide, by 0.9 meters tall. The goals are made of plastic or fiberglass and are tethered in one place by floats that surround the apparatus. There must be at least 30 cm. between the goal lines and the pool wall.
Located on the sides of the pool are 2 goal judges and two referees. There is 1 referee on each side of the pool. The referee calls the play dead if he sees a foul committed. With one arm, he indicates where the ball must be put back into play. With the other, he points in the direction of the offense. The referee signals when excluded players can return to play, using blue and white flags (according to the team color.) Two goal judges signal valid goals. To signal a valid goal, the ball must cross all the way over the goal line.
Water Polo Player Profile. Water Polo players are strong, fast, and coordinated. A skilled player must be able to swim while keeping the ball close to his body and not breaking stride. Some stars of the game have included Francesco Attolico of Italy and Manuel Estiante of Spain.
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