IOC Approves Gender Parity for Water Polo Teams at LA 2028 Olympics
The International Olympic Committee’s approval of sports and quota spots for the LA 2028 Olympics on Wednesday included parity in the number of water polo teams competing.
For the first time in Olympic history, the Los Angeles Games will feature 12 women’s water polo teams, equivalent to the number of men’s teams competing. There had been only 10 women’s teams at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
The move was recommended by World Aquatics and approved by the IOC Executive Board, a decision that World Aquatics said in a press release was unanimous.
“This is a historic achievement for women’s water polo,” World Aquatics president Husain Al Musallam said in a press release. “Expanding the Olympic tournament to 12 teams not only ensures gender parity but also reflects the sport’s remarkable growth and global reach. We look forward to an incredible competition in Los Angeles.”
The decision is especially propitious given the 2028 Olympics’ location in the hotbed of American water polo that is California. The American women have won four medals, including gold in London, Rio and Tokyo, and were fourth in Paris. The American men won bronze in Paris.
In Paris, the men’s tournament featured two six-team groups, allowing five round-robin games (three per group each day) and the top four in each group advancing to the knockout stages. The women’s tournament, with two five-team groups, meant one team would be idle on each of the five days of group play, and eight of 10 advanced to the knockout stages.
The Tokyo and Paris Olympics each featured 10 women’s teams. It had been eight in Rio in 2016 and the three Olympics before that, with the initial 2000 tournament a six-team, one-group format.
The men’s tournament has featured 12 teams at every Olympics since 1976, maintained even through significant Olympic boycotts. The 1972 tournament featured 16 nations, as did the 1968 edition, despite Australia not being able to finance a team despite being invited. There were an unwieldy 13 teams in 1964, 16 in 1960 and 10 in 1956.
World Aquatics (then known as FINA) instituted gender parity in water polo participation for the 2003 World Championships, with both the men’s and women’s tournaments featuring 16 teams. It had been 12 women’s teams starting in 1994 and 16 men’s squads previously. (It’s common for sport-specific world championships to have broader participation than on the Olympic stage.)
Gender parity was a significant theme in Wednesday’s announcement. In consultation with FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, the IOC flipped the gender dynamics of its soccer tournaments in LA, going from 16 men’s teams and 12 women’s squads in Paris to 16 women’s and 12 men’s in Los Angeles, a reflection of the relative importance of each tournament in their respective genders. (Men’s soccer on the Olympic stage is an under-23 tournament with three allowed overage players.) Mixed team events were also launched in artistic gymnastics, table tennis and compound bow archery.
