Men's Water Polo EA European Championship 2026 Road to LA 2028

Bailer · January 23

On 1/22/2026 at 9:39 AM, hckošice said:

Dear lord allmighty !!!

I see We lost to Malta. and it was not even a close score

oh my dear... once we were even at the Olympics ffs. nothing works in this country, nothing

Vivat Slovakia :lol:

But in all seriousness, it's been repeatedly stated how important it is to qualify in a team event for the next Summer Olympics. However, I have no idea if we even have a realistic chance.

We only have one fewer individual athlete competing this year than we did in Paris, so individual quota spots aren't the main issue. Where can we find a competitive team, like we do in hockey? Maybe the women's handball team could start something big, but that's still far in the future, very likely unachievable in just two years.

And to be clear, as horrific as our medal tally from Paris looked, those were some of the unluckiest Olympics for Slovakia I have ever seen. Finishing in the top six seven times (!) is absolutely insane.

hckošice · January 23

47 minutes ago, Bailer said:

Vivat Slovakia

But in all seriousness, it's been repeatedly stated how important it is to qualify in a team event for the next Summer Olympics. However, I have no idea if we even have a realistic chance.

We only have one fewer individual athlete competing this year than we did in Paris, so individual quota spots aren't the main issue. Where can we find a competitive team, like we do in hockey? Maybe the women's handball team could start something big, but that's still far in the future, very likely unachievable in just two years.

And to be clear, as horrific as our medal tally from Paris looked, those were some of the unluckiest Olympics for Slovakia I have ever seen. Finishing in the top six seven times (!) is absolutely insane.

Yeah, Qualifying a team for the summer olympics is completely out of the question. Not going to happen for a long time. In Sydney 2000 we had 3 teams W Basketball, M Football & M Water Polo, it was already insane and this was even in a totally different era. Nowadays it is just Utopian. We have none to be at a high level in Europe to aspire for a qualification to the Olympics.

W Handball is really the most obvious chance in a long shot. The U17 girls showed last summer that it is possible, who knows maybe in Brisbane if the planets allign well.

Paris 2024 was a nightmare I do not want to remember. The worst games I experienced in my life. point.

lapaj · January 25

3-4th places:

:GRE 12-5 :ITA

First ever EC medal for the greek men's team!

lapaj · January 25

In the final:

:SRB 10-7 :HUN

Congrats :SRB !

MatiReimundo · January 26

2026 Men's European WaterPolo Championship - Belgrade

Results (January 10-25, 2026)

Men's:

1. Serbia (Filipovic - Mandic - Rasovic - Randelovic - Cuk - Lazic - Drasovic - N Jaksic - Vico - Dedovic - P Jaksic - Rasovic - Glusac - Martinovic - Lukic)

2. Hungary :HUN (Kristof - Angyal - Manhercz - Akos - Vigvari - Nagy - Fekete - David - Kovacs - Vendel - Jansik - Batizi - Vogel - Zsombor - Varga)

3. Greece :GRE (Zerdevas - Genidounias - Skoumpakis - Gkiouvetsis - Argyropoulos - Papanastasiou - Gkillas - Kalogeropoulos - Chalyvopoulos - Kakaris - Nikolaidis - Papanikolaou - Tzortzatos - Pouros - Spachits)

4. Italy :ITA

5. Spain :ESP