tried this a few times over high school gym class and almost died as a pretty fit guy. insanely tough sport, don’t think being a strong swimmer and being able to tread water for a long time is enough. i was gassed in minutes.
I dont think people realize how brutal this sport is. I have a personal friend who was on an Olympic polo team decades ago, HE was the one who told me it was very physical underwater, broken fingers and broken wrists super common as when you are covering or being covered there are a ton a "cheap shots" and hand/wrist fighting and kicking each other going on. I never realized that until he told me and showed me in the pool. He's in his 70's now, was in his 60's when he showed me and explained it. I always just thought of it as basketball/soccer in the water, the physical requirements are crazy, stamina, speed and wrist locks, fighting under water, kicking, pretty intense.
Had no idea. Musselman stopped mid swim, turned around and started to back stroke, caught the ball mid backstroke ONE HANDED, stopped on a dime, went vertical like an Orca and SUNK the shot to the back corner. Amazing. First time watcher, now a fan for sure.
Wow! Wow! Wow! What a privilege to have this team and family of athletes represent women, the US, water polo, and the Olympics. True professionals on camera and on TV! I specifically made a point for my son, who's 6 years old, to watch the women teams participate in the Olympics so he can understand from a young age that women are just as fierce and just as capable! Thank you for giving your time and sharing your sport. I truly enjoyed this and my legs are burnt from watching you ladies!
When I was learning to swim treading water for 2 minutes alone was already a challenge I can’t even imagine for 40 minutes while also trying to play a game
Blood in the Water - 1956 Melbourne Olympics, USSR v. Hungary. Political situation of the time notwithstanding, proof that this sport has always had a very strong sense of physicality to it.
My high school water polo coach was five times Adam Krikorian. He loved to outright ridicule individuals. If someone’s fast break was too slow during scrimmage, he would hurl a ball at their head from the deck. He was much disliked, and never won a single league championship during his coaching career. And even there in HS we had rough games - a broken arm, broken rib. I was kicked in the face. That was the 1970’s.
When I was in teenager, I competed in synchronized swimming, I am *very* familiar with the egg beater. Looks easy, but it's hard to sustain for a long period of time.
Difficulty of water polo is in part that you need to be in the top 1% of population as a swimmer and top 1% of strength to be a beginner. Soccer or basketball do not require you to be an elite runner and have elite strength before you can even take up the game. In water polo when you touch the ball the defense can than foul you, in basketball and soccer if you control the ball you cannot be fouled legally. Think of water polo as soccer or basketball were the defense gets to wrestle and box you while you try to play.
The coach said everyone understands the physicality...🤔 Who is everyone? I just learned so much about the sport by watching this video. This sport is intense!
Greetings from Mr Axel Vasa the west coast wizard himself, I got something essential to share with you, Be yourself, everyone else is already taken. Love you very much❤️.
I don't understand how fouls work. Seems really easy to just "swim" your elbow into someone elses nose and bust them up or row over someone and hold them down.
Absolutely not. These drivers are insanely talented but ultimately they are divas who only compete against other drivers who are not the best in the world. There are way to many political, financial reasons behind driver signings to teams and also the car that adds a handicap. They are not competing against the best of the best like say in Tennis where is one global pool dictated 100% by skill. You might say "oh but the drivers lose 10lbs per race!" You should see how much a marathoner loses, a tennis player, list goes on. F1 drivers have an army of employees at their disposal and are pretty much treated like kings.
@Business Insider: THE thoughest sport in the world is artistic gymnastics! Everyone who practices sports knows it, or, at least should know it. There is no more mental and physical demanding sport than this!
wrong! wrong!! and very wrong!!! the most difficult sport in the history of sports is curling. One cant argue the technical difficulty of mopping frozen floor in a clown's outfit with a broom. So there u have it!!!!
Go do it. Or are you going to list all the excuses of why you can’t? Or what prevented you from doing something like this? When you were 13, were you getting up at 4:30am, to be in the pool for 5:30, swimming until 7:30. In class for 8:10 and it’s a 20min drive. Classes until 1:30, in the library until 3:00, track practice until 6:00, home for dinner, showered, more homework, equipment work, bed by 10. I did it for years. No funding. I was a kid and I did all my own fundraising, pre internet/social media, for equipment and travel. I was on a big team or even had a club. You have to be good to get in a major team. I wanted to be on team Canada for track. I finally got invited to a training camps “where food was made for me.” I took 2 weeks off school, all my books to teach myself while away and paid $800 to go. I had an awesome teacher who would meet me after school my first week back, so I could get caught up. I skipped prom. My graduation. Parties. Family events. Holidays. I had to say no to a lot of things. I didn’t eat any “fast food” chips, pop, candy, etc. for 10 years. I prepared food and took it with me. I saved up money to go live in Florida, on my own, for 4 months. I was 19. I knew no one, packed up my shit and drove myself to a house I rented that I found in a classified. I trained. on my own. It got lonely. I’ve shared hotel rooms with 6-8 people to save money, drive across country multiple times, 18hrs at a time, to get to meets. There only days off, was when I was too sick to leave bed, or when I spent 8 months in the hospital, had 7 surgeries for an illness, lost my team spot and had to recover from near death, to sitting up on my own to training again. My budgets were so strict, many times eating garlic on crackers for a meal, or a can of black beans, because that was all that was in the fridge and I had no more money in my budget. My hopes was it working out and I would make back so if it, I did. I never lived large, but I paid for school, my car and a place to live. I made it to two games. I medaled. My career was awesome. But if you think this glimpse of prepared meals and daily training sessions with your friends, is what being an athlete is like, you’re sorely mistaken. Thank God my career was before social media. Everyone showing the highlights and best parts, and never the loneliness, the financial destitute, laying on the floor with ice packs taped around joints, hoping you’ll feel good enough for the afternoon workout…. All while reading comments like yours because you saw a ten minute video and trash people efforts, without care or thought, just the entitlement of thinking everything else is so easy, you just got it hard and could’ve done that too, but reasons. As if we all didn’t have reasons too, but still did it. .
Here we go again "celebrating" a black person's accomplishment in a sport seemingly foreign to them. When we STOP recognizing someone's skin color, THEN we can put racism to bed. But, everybody wants to continue focusing on race and making a big deal over it. And, don't you dare try calling ME a racist, I'm not. I'm just sick and tired of hearing about it. MOVE ON, people !!
I'll be honest, I kind of had that same thought when I heard them talking about it. Sometimes it feels as if people think we (black people) are a different species or something. On the other hand, I know what it's like to be the first / only person of your race to do something. People do ice you out and treat you differently, which means you need an extra layer of drive and resilience to be successful.
While I tend to hate the Diversity is our Strength Mantra. This Team USA Goalie has the talent, wins & medals to back it up. (She’s the real deal) Merit over Diversity.
You’re using every part of the body at the same exact time. You’re not playing on even ground like most sports. You have to focus on keeping yourself above the water, time management, where everybody is, where the ball is, what type of defensive or offensive formation they are taking, and more. I don’t even watch or play water polo, but even I know that there are little to no sports that can compete with the physical and mental toll that water polo athletes face.
although i think its great that Ashley is on the team lets not ignore the fact that her family is more well off financially then other black folks. Let alone that the fact that her upbringing and the people she grew up around ((friends, school, community) were of the same stability and support as others on the team - mostly if not all because of being well off financially
Water Polo is awesome. But it is not the toughest sport in the world. Get a handle on yourselves! Quit with the unprecedented and it's the greatest ever stuff unless it really is.
@@artemrevelsky The video is claiming water polo is 'the toughest sport in the world'. That is comparing apples to oranges, grapes, bananas, pineapples, mangos and any other fruit you care to name. The claim is obviously unfounded. Let's just agree that any competitive sport is tough and comparisons are meaningless.
tried this a few times over high school gym class and almost died as a pretty fit guy. insanely tough sport, don’t think being a strong swimmer and being able to tread water for a long time is enough. i was gassed in minutes.
I play it and you get used to it and it becomes easy
How? Did someone hold your head under water?
have fat on or your body makes it so much easir
Almost drowned playing water polo at school - absolute nightmare sport. The people who play are to be feared.
well a lot of us have a background of swimming. I never have had a problem with drowning because ive been swimming since i was 8.
I dont think people realize how brutal this sport is. I have a personal friend who was on an Olympic polo team decades ago, HE was the one who told me it was very physical underwater, broken fingers and broken wrists super common as when you are covering or being covered there are a ton a "cheap shots" and hand/wrist fighting and kicking each other going on. I never realized that until he told me and showed me in the pool. He's in his 70's now, was in his 60's when he showed me and explained it. I always just thought of it as basketball/soccer in the water, the physical requirements are crazy, stamina, speed and wrist locks, fighting under water, kicking, pretty intense.
Had no idea. Musselman stopped mid swim, turned around and started to back stroke, caught the ball mid backstroke ONE HANDED, stopped on a dime, went vertical like an Orca and SUNK the shot to the back corner. Amazing. First time watcher, now a fan for sure.
And delivered a fn strike 😂😂😂😂 i thought i was the only one to catch that crazy movement
Wow! Wow! Wow! What a privilege to have this team and family of athletes represent women, the US, water polo, and the Olympics. True professionals on camera and on TV! I specifically made a point for my son, who's 6 years old, to watch the women teams participate in the Olympics so he can understand from a young age that women are just as fierce and just as capable! Thank you for giving your time and sharing your sport. I truly enjoyed this and my legs are burnt from watching you ladies!
When I was learning to swim treading water for 2 minutes alone was already a challenge I can’t even imagine for 40 minutes while also trying to play a game
An absolutely underrated amazing sport!
I truly hope that the Olympics will help shed light on this sport
I've always curious about this sport, and this video encapsulates it very well with an aspiring context
shout out to ashleigh’s mom for putting her in polo!!!
incredible sport....great video highlighting all the works that goes into it
Played this for a bit in high school and got traumatized from the amount of bruises, scratches and amount of times i was almosy drowned LMAO
My wife played varsity water polo. Very intense game
Good on her!
Water polo and synchronized swimming both look so freaking hard to me compared to any other sport.
Wow wow wow. Thanks for documenting this, these women are incredible!
Great cinematography ❤
Blood in the Water - 1956 Melbourne Olympics, USSR v. Hungary. Political situation of the time notwithstanding, proof that this sport has always had a very strong sense of physicality to it.
Very interesting
Wish the US Team the best of luck!
They didn't medal 😢
My high school water polo coach was five times Adam Krikorian. He loved to outright ridicule individuals. If someone’s fast break was too slow during scrimmage, he would hurl a ball at their head from the deck. He was much disliked, and never won a single league championship during his coaching career. And even there in HS we had rough games - a broken arm, broken rib.
I was kicked in the face. That was the 1970’s.
Just started water polo in high school today. I wanted to throw up pretty much the whole time. 😅
You should have...just to see what happens 😂
maybe wear water wings next practice.
When I was in teenager, I competed in synchronized swimming, I am *very* familiar with the egg beater. Looks easy, but it's hard to sustain for a long period of time.
Difficulty of water polo is in part that you need to be in the top 1% of population as a swimmer and top 1% of strength to be a beginner.
Soccer or basketball do not require you to be an elite runner and have elite strength before you can even take up the game. In water polo
when you touch the ball the defense can than foul you, in basketball and soccer if you control the ball you cannot be fouled legally. Think of
water polo as soccer or basketball were the defense gets to wrestle and box you while you try to play.
Wooow ladies, bravo! And Mrs. Johnson (mom) what an inspiration!
Congrats!! Go team USA
Amazing!
The coach said everyone understands the physicality...🤔 Who is everyone? I just learned so much about the sport by watching this video. This sport is intense!
Videos are really good
I was a swimmer through high school and I could never do polo! this sport is insane
What EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN❤❤
it's France, they're men
Of all the sports I've ever played, water polo is by far the absolute most difficult bar none
😆🤣
My sister got the official US girls water polo ball signed the day she worked in the training grounds this year
15:41 looool
Flavor Flaaaaaav!
They’re at Mt SAC in California
USA were defeated by Australia, on penalty shots, after tying 8-8 at full time, in the semi-final at the Paris Olympic games.
I admire water polo players. These ladies ate top athletes. They earn their gold every day.
SECOND TO NONE, WE OWN THE FINISH LINE!!! 🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅
Never heard of this sport.. the fear of somebody trying to drown me on purpose... No.
Apparently in 2011 Water Polo was the toughest sport in the world
haha i still consider it to be
@@mars_mellow5842 Why?
And Netherlands have beaten US for bronze medal & US will go home with zero medal 😱
It’s definitely between this, wrestling, and boxing.
@jjw00dw3 this is way easier
Polo is indeed hard work. U need to like it to play it, it's definitely not for everybody.
Ashleigh's mom sounds Jamaican
Flaaaave
A great sport, but I still feel sorry about all the horses that drown...
I thought the Australian women should of been in the final
Screw that I can barely doggy paddle lol
Treading water is enough to kill your. It’s sooooo hard
Greetings from Mr Axel Vasa the west coast wizard himself, I got something essential to share with you, Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
Love you very much❤️.
Thanks to Australia they are not going to be able to get that gold medal😂😂😂
Ladies and Gentlemen this sport is not a joke 😂
How's this even possible?
Just get a team of sand divers from that video a week ago...teach them the basics and everyone else is screwed, lol
I don't understand how fouls work. Seems really easy to just "swim" your elbow into someone elses nose and bust them up or row over someone and hold them down.
SPAIN women won the gold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Soooo, they didn't make the podium.
I think F1 is the toughest sport.
Absolutely not. These drivers are insanely talented but ultimately they are divas who only compete against other drivers who are not the best in the world. There are way to many political, financial reasons behind driver signings to teams and also the car that adds a handicap. They are not competing against the best of the best like say in Tennis where is one global pool dictated 100% by skill. You might say "oh but the drivers lose 10lbs per race!" You should see how much a marathoner loses, a tennis player, list goes on. F1 drivers have an army of employees at their disposal and are pretty much treated like kings.
A hard “sport” sure, hardest? Definitely not💀
Nah bro @asreb9
@@purpleg3899 Great low IQ argument
Well that didn't work, Australia beat US in semifinal by penalties & will face netherlands in bronze medal match 😧
Such games should be banned . Only easy games should be played
First oh wait nvm the bots beat me to it
You’re a lame for even attempting this
they didn't even medal haha
looks like all these players come from money
No kidding. Of course they think their sport is the “hardest.” They are delusional rich kids
@Business Insider: THE thoughest sport in the world is artistic gymnastics!
Everyone who practices sports knows it, or, at least should know it.
There is no more mental and physical demanding sport than this!
I would argue synchronized swimming. It's artistic gymnastics + water polo.
I don't recall seeing people in artistic gymnasts getting kicked in the face or almost throwing up from too much sprinting
wrong!
wrong!!
and very wrong!!!
the most difficult sport in the history of sports is curling.
One cant argue the technical difficulty of mopping frozen floor in a clown's outfit with a broom.
So there u have it!!!!
Sacrifice? I’d love to be able to train all day and be fed, coached up etc.
Exactly. This is the type of bullshit that gives the Olympics a bad name
Go do it. Or are you going to list all the excuses of why you can’t? Or what prevented you from doing something like this? When you were 13, were you getting up at 4:30am, to be in the pool for 5:30, swimming until 7:30. In class for 8:10 and it’s a 20min drive. Classes until 1:30, in the library until 3:00, track practice until 6:00, home for dinner, showered, more homework, equipment work, bed by 10. I did it for years. No funding. I was a kid and I did all my own fundraising, pre internet/social media, for equipment and travel. I was on a big team or even had a club. You have to be good to get in a major team. I wanted to be on team Canada for track. I finally got invited to a training camps “where food was made for me.” I took 2 weeks off school, all my books to teach myself while away and paid $800 to go. I had an awesome teacher who would meet me after school my first week back, so I could get caught up. I skipped prom. My graduation. Parties. Family events. Holidays. I had to say no to a lot of things. I didn’t eat any “fast food” chips, pop, candy, etc. for 10 years. I prepared food and took it with me. I saved up money to go live in Florida, on my own, for 4 months. I was 19. I knew no one, packed up my shit and drove myself to a house I rented that I found in a classified. I trained. on my own. It got lonely. I’ve shared hotel rooms with 6-8 people to save money, drive across country multiple times, 18hrs at a time, to get to meets. There only days off, was when I was too sick to leave bed, or when I spent 8 months in the hospital, had 7 surgeries for an illness, lost my team spot and had to recover from near death, to sitting up on my own to training again. My budgets were so strict, many times eating garlic on crackers for a meal, or a can of black beans, because that was all that was in the fridge and I had no more money in my budget. My hopes was it working out and I would make back so if it, I did. I never lived large, but I paid for school, my car and a place to live.
I made it to two games. I medaled. My career was awesome. But if you think this glimpse of prepared meals and daily training sessions with your friends, is what being an athlete is like, you’re sorely mistaken. Thank God my career was before social media. Everyone showing the highlights and best parts, and never the loneliness, the financial destitute, laying on the floor with ice packs taped around joints, hoping you’ll feel good enough for the afternoon workout…. All while reading comments like yours because you saw a ten minute video and trash people efforts, without care or thought, just the entitlement of thinking everything else is so easy, you just got it hard and could’ve done that too, but reasons. As if we all didn’t have reasons too, but still did it. .
Fourty ninth
Hey @Business Insider: STILL wrong !
The HARDEST is GYMNASTICS.
There needs to be more black water polo players 🤷♂️
I bet the skateboarders could pick up on most sports before a majority of the athletes could learn to kick flip.
The Serbian mans team is an even better way much better.
Here we go again "celebrating" a black person's accomplishment in a sport seemingly foreign to them.
When we STOP recognizing someone's skin color, THEN we can put racism to bed. But, everybody wants to continue focusing on race and making a big deal over it.
And, don't you dare try calling ME a racist, I'm not. I'm just sick and tired of hearing about it. MOVE ON, people !!
I'll be honest, I kind of had that same thought when I heard them talking about it. Sometimes it feels as if people think we (black people) are a different species or something. On the other hand, I know what it's like to be the first / only person of your race to do something. People do ice you out and treat you differently, which means you need an extra layer of drive and resilience to be successful.
While I tend to hate the Diversity is our Strength Mantra. This Team USA Goalie has the talent, wins & medals to back it up. (She’s the real deal) Merit over Diversity.
Not even top 50.
It definitely is in the top 50 toughest sports!?
Sorry to say but this is not the toughest sport on earth.
You’re using every part of the body at the same exact time. You’re not playing on even ground like most sports. You have to focus on keeping yourself above the water, time management, where everybody is, where the ball is, what type of defensive or offensive formation they are taking, and more. I don’t even watch or play water polo, but even I know that there are little to no sports that can compete with the physical and mental toll that water polo athletes face.
It's swimming, wrestling and handball/soccer all mixed into one. That is a tough combination of physicality, technical skill, game awareness.
@@king_ltc_ no. it's GYMNASTICS.
@@anjoLas I’m sorry. No.
@@king_ltc_ yes, it is
It would be easier if they had more persons who identify as women on their team.
how's this one of the hardest sports?!?! they just swimming around in a pool. I did that when I was 10 years old.
Ping Pong is probably harder tbh
Grueling to watch, hella boring.
although i think its great that Ashley is on the team lets not ignore the fact that her family is more well off financially then other black folks. Let alone that the fact that her upbringing and the people she grew up around ((friends, school, community) were of the same stability and support as others on the team - mostly if not all because of being well off financially
cry abt it
The reporting isn’t about her families socioeconomic status….
Water Polo is awesome. But it is not the toughest sport in the world. Get a handle on yourselves! Quit with the unprecedented and it's the greatest ever stuff unless it really is.
Gymnastics is THE thoughest one.
Ain't no DEI in water polo. You either sink or you swim.
except there is lol and ash is a clear example
One of the most nonsense game in the Olympics! lol!
"The toughest" lol no
yeap, it's gymastics
Lol yes....now just dont take the name of that garbage called mma
@@souravpaul2179 agreed
@@anjoLas They changed the title of the video haha
@@hoosierflatty6435 go figure LOL
Transformer boxer had broken a nose of Italian female boxer on 46s of a boxing match.
*loud buzzer* wronggg
The underwater football league seems 100% harder than this
One of the toughest probably, boxing will always be the toughest!
how? rigging game by showing aircraft carriers everywhere
How can this be tougher than cycling??
Tour de France has got to be more intense than this.
That's apples to oranges comparison. Just like comparing 100m dash vs 10000m run. Very hard to excel at either one.
@@artemrevelsky The video is claiming water polo is 'the toughest sport in the world'. That is comparing apples to oranges, grapes, bananas, pineapples, mangos and any other fruit you care to name. The claim is obviously unfounded. Let's just agree that any competitive sport is tough and comparisons are meaningless.
@@gerry343Cycling is our environment.....this is water
Just get a couple of men
there is nothing special about this video, this Sport is not exclusive to women, and men are doing the same are men complaining
Sorry but water polo is nowhere near the toughest sport in the world. What a joke.
Water polo is the toughest sport in the world....they have to be in water....where moving for 40 minutes is definately out of our normal environment
@@souravpaul2179 No it isn't. Boxing, MMA, and wrestling are way tougher than water polo. It isn't even close.
Maybe they can compete without male trans getting in.❤
It might be tough as a sport but it's even tougher to watch... 🥱
i bet their super thankful they dont have to play in sewage.... thanks france.