Would you be hungry after World Cup silver?
For the first time in its history, our women's national team is going to the Olympics with two federal captains, which is the first, extremely turbulent after half a year, he earned a quota with a world championship silver. Since then, moods have calmed down, and during the approximately two months of preparation, he was able to record not only encouraging results, but also gained important experience.
A very eventful year is over for Hungarian women's water polo team, which underwent a captaincy change after last year's world championship in Fukuoka, and Attila Bíró was replaced by not one, but two professionals, Attila Mihók and Sándor Cseh. To put it mildly, the unusual formation was not met with unanimous trust and agreement, moreover, the new coaches were given no less a task than to lead the team to the Paris Olympics. There was a chance for this for the first time at the European Championship, which was moved to Eindhoven, where, however, the company bled in the quarter-finals and in the end only took fifth place, for which there was no quota.
There was only one chance left: a few weeks later, a feat had to be achieved at the World Cup in Doha. The team arrived there with a completely different attitude, moreover, the game (especially the defense) came together, the development was immediately evident, as the team won the group stage, then fought back against the Dutch in the quarter-finals and the Greeks in the semi-finals for the European defeats. . With the latter's success, the set goal was achieved, the national team was able to redeem its ticket to Paris, and although there was a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth due to the loss of the final against the Americans, when the girls returned home the next day, they were without exception smiling at the airport with sparkling eyes.
The girls first trained at home with future group rivals Canada, and ended the program with a public practice match and a confident victory, before heading to Greece, where they finished in second place in a very tough tournament, behind the Australians, but ahead of the hosts, Canada and France. the Thetis Cup. After that, they ran to America, where after joint training and two goals, they clashed twice with the current best team in the world, and the second time they won! The preparation has ended at home, and on Saturday the forced march begins in Paris, with a very difficult and important match against the Netherlands. U.S. This is how I imagined it from that point of view, in the end we also had some sense of success, which hopefully builds us up, but we deal with it in its place. We don't talk too much about the fact that we are preparing for the Olympics, we are concentrating on our tasks and preparing for the next world competition," said Attila Mihók"This long training camp was very good, it was also difficult , there were days of crying and laughing. Overall, you could feel that we were making good progress, and this was reflected in the final day's win against America, where we were solid both individually and as a team. We were able to resume work where we left off at the World Cup, we didn't have to get those experiences again, because we had them. Then the elements were continuously built in, until the end of the American tour, but an Olympics also involves external influences, you have to be careful that these cannot seep in," added Sándor Cseh.
At the ten-team competition, the participants were divided into two groups of five. There will always be a rest day between the meetings, and even three between the 2nd and 3rd.
The system is not overcomplicated: four out of five go on and continue with the B-mark in the quarter-finals 5 with the passers, 1st against 4th, 2nd against 3rd, and so on. On the other side, the Americans, the Spanish, the Italians, the Greeks, or in the case of a surprise, the French can come in this round, so it really doesn't matter where we end up in the group stage.
Attila Mihók and Sándor Cseh announced their final squad of 13 on July 6, all of whom were present at the Doha event, and several of whom already have an Olympic routine, while Kamilla Faragó, Brigitta Horváth, Geraldine Mahieu and Neszmély Boglárka will be in Paris debut as an Olympian. On the other side of the scale, team captain Rita Keszthelyi will jump into the water during her fourth five-hoop game, which is a Hungarian women's record, and Krisztina Garda will join the "three-Olympians".
The squad:
Alda Magyar
Dorottya Szilágyi
Vanda Vályi
Gréta Gurisatti
Mahieu Geraldine
Rebecca Parkes
Brigitta Horváth
Rita Keszthelyi
Dóra Leimeter
Natasa Rybanska
Kamilla Caragó
Kristztina Garda
Neszmély Boglárka
The program:
2024. July 27 14:00: Netherlands-Hungary
2024. July 29, 20:05: Hungary-Canada
2024. August 2, 20:05: China-Hungary
2024. August 4, 14:00: Australia-Hungary
