this is one of the most difficult sports in the world to play. You're grabbing, you're pushing, you're kicking, there's no rest, our rest is work. I'm counting the clock, I'm watching the ball. You're talking about the greatest Women's Water Polo program of all time. The US Women's Water Polo team is on the brink of making history at the 2024 Paris Olympics. No other women's national team has won Gold more than once, and the US is going for its fourth. The legacy of the USA Women's Water Polo team is a tremendous one. They've won the last three Olympic Golds, they've won eight World Championships, they have set quite literally a gold standard in the sport that every other country is currently chasing. Water polo is a team endeavor, but every sport has players who set the standard for greatness. Ashley Johnson, one of the greatest goalies to ever play the game. She's one of the best goalkeepers in the world, maybe the sport has ever seen. Ashley as an athlete is

ferocious. She puts her all into her game. Water polo is pretty physical. Like a lot of people kick, a lot of people grab. So one of the hardest parts about water polo is it's two games: underwater and overwater. You are pushing yourself past your limits physically, mentally, emotionally every single day. We filmed with Team USA in June 2024 as they prepared for one of their final matches before heading to the Olympics. I hate to lose, and that's kind of sometimes what drives me to win. I'm like, I want to win. Like, I'm going to win at all costs. So what makes water polo such a brutal sport, and how do you become second to none? I mean, someone turned the alarm off over there. This is, we're 5 weeks away from going to the Olympic Games. At this stage, we want to do everything well. We got you clowns aren't ready to train this week, still on vacation in Barcelona. We got the age group kids over there. I got water in my

shoes. I'm glad we got this on TV. This is the life of the US Women's National Team. This year's roster includes seasoned Olympians like goalkeeper Ashley Johnson, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, attacker Maddie Musselman, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and team captain Maggie Steffens, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, all led by coach Adam Krikorian. I think everyone understands the physicality, and I think when you watch, you might think it's hard, and it is hard, but what's even harder is what's done here in practice. I got news for you, I cannot play, I cannot tell you what to do when you are playing, think about it. I want we get halfway out the right. I woke up probably around 5:45. It takes me about 30 minutes to drive here. We usually do like warm up for about 15 to 20 minutes, and usually Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays we lift in the mornings before we swim. For elite players, leg strength is key. This helps them execute a fundamental.

but challenging maneuver called the egg beater, which they'll use in the pool later. If you see us in the gym, we're doing heavy squats. We're doing things that are fast so that we get those fast twitch muscles going and working with bouncing tennis balls. When you can't see the tennis ball coming at you from behind, and then it might change direction, it might come a little faster, one might come a little slower, so it helps us react to the moment to whatever is coming. And the training pays off. The average safe percentage for a woman's water polo goalie is between 45 and 58%. Ashley's average is above that. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, she ended the games with a safe percentage of nearly 65%. Going into today's practice, it's a little hot, so I'm excited to get in the water. 1 minute next bottom, next bottom. Chris Oding, he's our swim coach, pretty much. You usually swim like 3,000 yards, fours five, and then usually do some stations.

passing shooting like usually working on specific defenses or specific teams that we're going to see at the Olympics. hey so we're working specifically on our shot blocking maybe you're diving in on the Block because you don't want to leave one open shot. hey hey hold up hold up you're not ready to train at all this week. I mean you came in yesterday we got in the water no one was ready to practice at all. do we want to give up a 4 to one pass guys. why the hell do I need to tell you that why. I mean use your common sense sometimes when you feel too good about yourself that can be just as dangerous is is not feeling great about yourself. so it's my responsibility to to keep us in check and again to kind of bring us down into this this level right in the middle no mic anything goes this guy's heard enough F bombs anyway. training is both physically and mentally taxing and water's not the only element they're up against. contact lenses are are just beneficial for your eyes.

overall, so thinking about the time that we spend in the Sun, the reflection off the water, it can cause a lot of damage. Sunspots on our eyes, mine are super red 'cause I like this. They suit my eyes way better out here. And then there's ones that are black, um, that'll give a different kind of scary look. Maddie, Joe, Tara, Maggie, Rachel, and Jenna put on Blue Caps. Everyone else put on White Caps. This is how we distinguish ourselves in the water. Our jersey number, our cap number right here on her head. This is super important. And we wear these ear guards, not so we can hear better. It is to protect our ears. A lot of times, water polo is super physical. There's elbows, there's arms kicking underwater. People would be shocked to realize just how much time we spend on just the simplest things. Hands are out, hands are out, and doing those simple skills right, and doing them not just right every once in a while, but doing them right every single day, like the egg beater. This is our standing. It allows us.

to stay above water and play this game. The move is similar to a breaststroke kick, but players alternate their leg movement rather than kicking both legs in sync. I think some of the biggest misconceptions, one being that we touch the bottom of the pool. We get asked that so often. Over the course of a game, players tread water for about 40 minutes and swim an average of just under 2 miles. This is what we call our dribbling. So, we put the ball in front of our face, and we use our elbows and our strokes to almost create a channel for the ball to float. You're using every single muscle in your body. You can even see the concentration and focus in her face. Being able to pass the ball accurately and being able to elevate yourself out of the water takes a tremendous amount of leg strength. One player who excels at this is MD Muselman, Maddie, one of the best attackers in the game. He is one of the fastest players in the world, and there are moments in which

she almost seems like she's covering two or three people instead of one. Her technical abilities helped her earn the title of MVP at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 2021, she was named Total Water Polo Player of the Year, one of the most prestigious titles in the sport. The following year, she received that honor for the second time. She's got what we call an incredible vertical game, so she can elevate her body out of the water really high to the point where she's such a threat for us offensively from the perimeter with her shooting ability. And then she's also just moves in the water, maybe better than anyone else in the world. So her ability to cover space in a quick amount of time allows us to be really effective defensively. It is one of the hardest sports in the world because it's a combination of so many sports in one that move. M are really hard, so sometimes you accidentally just get hit. I've broken my nose and fingers like I've

broken a lot of things playing water polo. That's one of the challenges in this sport as well, is to make sure you're matching the intensity and the aggressiveness of the team, but not going overboard. As well in 2011, Bleacher Report named water polo the toughest sport in the world. With that being said, it is the easiest sport to quit, and not just quit entirely, but even quit in the drill, quit in the practice, or not necessarily give 100%. And it's my job to be a spark of inspiration, or maybe a little kick in the pants, to get them going in the right direction, to push them through a tough period. Adam Krikorian has carved out a legacy as perhaps the greatest women's water polo coach ever. He joined the USA national team in 2009, and since he took over Team USA, all he has done is taken a very good team and turned them into a great team. Perhaps the strongest skill is getting a group of 13

to coalesce as one towards a common goal. That common goal for the next few training sessions is to prepare to face off against Italy in 9 days. Maggie, you go to position two. So Adam this morning told us that this afternoon we have situations, and for me, it's really important to put myself in game situations. So in training, we're already living that moment, whether it happens or not, we've been there, we've done that. Hey, that's a good drive, but yeah, and cut, cut her off, like you can get open there. If not, like maybe you get her to hold you or something. There are seven newcomers on this team, which presents its own challenges. We're a little bit inexperienced in some positions, so we're going to have to be tougher. You're going to enter in, and then we'll just attack that. So when you get that ball, you can look for Ryan. But if the defense gets sucked down, you got Emily kind of stepping in right behind it for Center. This is not an overnight

process. By the time you make the Olympic team, you've been training at an extremely high level, and so no one came out of left field to make this team. They've been earning their place over and over again. When that ball goes, so you watch the ball, and then you're making this move down, but then as soon as you, like, this to worry about where Maggie is, that ball goes right over your head, right? So, like, we got to make that movement and have an idea of where she is without actually looking, or else the ball's going to go right over her head. I don't think we're quite as talented as we've been in the past, but ultimately the story is yet to be written. I want you to have a day and a half off before we start on Sunday, but like, we need to be ready to go on Sunday. It's going to be hard two weeks, but guess what? The Olympic games are two weeks long. It's not like, you know, one week, and then we go home. It's two weeks, and the

second week's more important than the first week so like obviously like making sure that you're doing everything you can to just take care of yourselves a little bit wash your hands stomach bugs going around wash your hands most importantly everyone wash your hands stay healthy stay away from me there she is [Music]. do you have morning PR it got canceled this morning ironically yeah some people are sick and so our coach kind of gave us some morning off and to sleep and we'll go back in the afternoon. okay hey come on over here there you go her goal was to make that team always I wrote my sixth grade year book that I wanted to be an Olympic water polo player so my Olympic dream started pretty young. I like honestly don't remember wri this it's kind of cool that my brain at that age was like already thinking about it and was like let's accomplish it and now looking back on it like I've done it twice and going for my third and it's pretty cool to see like

things come to fruition. Yeah, I put it in the sock I got at the Olympics. It's pretty old. This is Rio and then Tokyo. Yeah, so this is um Olympia is always on one side, and then the host country designs the other side. When she started getting serious about Polo, more people outside our family would watch her play and you know, talked about her being able to do things in the water that others couldn't do. And of course, we weren't familiar with the sports. We didn't really understand what that was. And when Adam and others came and we started talking about how she could train at the national level, for us, it became wow, she was all about the journey. I think Maddie was 15 or 16 at the time, so she was a puppy, and Ashley wasn't too much older. Ashley Johnson's career in water polo is one of a really special trajectory. She was the first black woman to ever make a US Olympic Women's Water Polo team, and so she's added this extra element of being a

Pioneer in the sport, and you wrap all that together, and you have one of the most influential people in the game. I got into the sport kind of by chance. I grew up in a house that had a pool in the backyard. First of all, my mom didn't know how to swim, but she put us into a sport that kind of scared her in some ways, but the fear pushed her to make us experts in it. I don't think Ashley ever dreamed of becoming a member of the Olympic team, but once there, she saw her role to be the first African-American to represent the US on the Olympic stage. It means the world to me. It's a huge responsibility first off, and I didn't understand that responsibility when I was young. I didn't know why there weren't more people who looked like me here. Ashley's success in water polo not only challenges the exclusion of African-American athletes in Aquatic sports but opens the door for more representation for female athletes in general. My story is a part of a bigger

story. And in that context, me being here and representing us and people who look like us creates a space where we're tell a new story. We belong here, we thrive here, we excel here. This is a picture of Ashley in one of the summer tournaments. She did well, won all her matches. In fact, one parent came to me and told me that her daughter spent all night wishing that Ashley would be sick so that she could win. I have always felt that the game depended on her. Always. So if they lost, I'm like, Oh my gosh, actually lost the game. But I don't feel that way anymore. At this high level, um, it's a team sport and the game depends on everybody in the game. But with a game against Italy fast approaching, it's important that Team USA doesn't underestimate their opponent. We, um, kind of have a little bit of a rivalry with them. We lost to them a summer ago at World Championships. So every opportunity that you get to play them again is always really exciting. That's a thing that kind of sticks with

us. Still, I think that keeps us humble, keeps us motivated. This is the final match of our two-game series between our visitors, the Italian women's national team, and your home team, Team USA. Starting with the captain, number six, Maggie Steffens, number one, Ashley Johnson, number two, Maddie Musselman. I'm just really excited to play Italy. They're a great team, they're one of the best in the world, and they always play with a lot of passion. And that's what we're going to face at the Olympics. As they race in, the ball drops in. The sport of water polo is like a lot of other sports. You already know, four eight-minute quarters, in a deep pool. There's a shot clock, just like basketball, and it's pretty simple: put the ball in the back of the net, most goals wins. And the captain, Maggie Steffens, with the goal. A lot of times in sport, a goal scorer gets the media, right? Or they get talked about. But guess what? There's so many little moments happening all around.

you and that's what makes the game so special. The toughest part about being a goalkeeper for me, it's really staying in the moment. That's one thing, is like counting the clock, saying the position of the ball as it moves around. It's really helpful for my teammates to stay in the same moment together. I'm here and there's nowhere else I can be, and if I'm not talking, I'm probably like looking up into the clouds for a second and the shot for the goal straight to the roof, that's C four. Both teams are back in full St, and that's the game. And with that final buzzer, Team USA wraps up a two-game series earning a 14-6 victory. Ashley Johnson had eight saves and ended the game with a save percentage of around 57%. Matd Muselman scored one goal, and Jenna Flynn, who's making her Olympic debut in Paris, scored three, proving the newcomers have no shortage of skill. We got off to a slow start, but I was happy the way we responded. I think anytime you

can hold a team to six goals, it's a job well done for us defensively with opportunity to like play a game, uh, just before the Olympics and you know, get that preparation, making them remember what it's like to play the USA. You kind of want to get out there, get after them, and instill that fear bit. So I think a win is great, but at the same time, there are things to learn from and things to get better from. We still have yet to put together a game, full game that we love, but there are some really cool moments there. We're getting to see different Shooters, we're getting to see different plays, and we're getting to see Italy in their Prime right before they get to the Olympics. So it's nice to Come Away with a win, but we have a long way to go. So I'm excited. The reality is when you've had as much success as this team has had, we're talking about sustained success. It's never just one thing, right? It's a multitude of things.

it's a million things that we've done right over the course of the last 12 years. There's no guarantee we're going to end up on top of the podium, but at least we're going to be putting ourselves in the best position possible to have success. And if we finished on top of the mountain like we had before, I'm sure it's going to be an elating feeling, but we can't take our foot off the gas pedal now.

How The US Olympic Water Polo Team Trains For The Toughest Sport In The World | Second To None

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