The U.S. Olympic Teams for Men's and Women's Water Polo have arrived in the Far East and are one step closer to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Both teams completed official Olympic processing at San Jose State University over the weekend before departing.
The men's team departed first heading from Northern California to China on Monday followed by the women on Tuesday. By now both squads will have made their way to the Far East and will begin their final preparations before the start of competition on August 10 for the men and August 11 for the women.
Head Coach Terry Schroeder's squad headed straight to Beijing from San Jose State where they will train at Beijing Normal University in anticipation of the games. The women's team will first head to Da Xing, China for a common training with the Netherlands. From there they will travel to Beijing and finish up their pregames training. Each group is riding a wave of success heading into the Olympic Games as the men are coming off a Silver Medal finish at the 2008 FINA World League Super Final, their highest ever finish at that event. For the women they recently took three out of four games from their rival, second ranked Australia concluding with a 7-5 win at Stanford University on July 10.
Southern California natives and team captains in Tony Azevedo and Brenda Villa will have their squads prepared for what will be a challenging road at the Olympics. After China the women will tangle with defending Gold Medalist Italy and then Russia to close out group play. For the men in the larger field they will have four more games after China including Italy, Serbia, Croatia, and Germany. Team USA has seen a good deal of Serbia and Croatia recently having split a two game series with Croatia in late May and then taking on Serbia in the Gold Medal match of the Super Final.
While there is a 15 hour difference between Pacific Time in the United State and local time in Beijing games will still be available for viewing on your local NBC station. In addition NBC Olympics.com will be streaming live coverage of a variety of water polo contests along with an on demand features. To take a look at when Team USA will be in the pool check out their Olympic Schedule. Check back with usawaterpolo.org for daily updates from China.
