The Most Dominant Team at the Games Might Be Better Than Ever

The U.S. girls’s water polo workforce gained Olympic championships in London and Rio. A one-year delay of the Tokyo Video games merely gave it extra time to enhance.

TOKYO — There may be by no means a scarcity of robust American groups heading to the Olympics. The ladies’s basketball workforce has gained six consecutive gold medals, and the lads’s workforce three in a row. The larger-than-life personalities on the World Cup-winning girls’s soccer workforce have captured the information media highlight, and the ladies’s gymnastics workforce, led by Simone Biles, is a heavy favourite in Tokyo.

However top-of-the-line United States squads is one you could have by no means seen: the U.S. girls’s water polo workforce.

The workforce gained the Olympic championship in 2012 and 2016. And the final three world championships. And the final three world cups, the final six World Leagues and the final 5 Pan American Video games. Between the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, actually, the workforce gained 128 video games, whereas dropping solely three.

And the Individuals don’t merely win their video games, they dominate in them. America beat Italy on the 2016 Olympics, 12-5, and thumped Spain within the final two world championships, 11-6 and 13-6. And people had been the finals. In preliminary rounds, 20-goal victories weren’t uncommon.

On Saturday, the Individuals acquired their Olympic Video games began with a 25-4 win over Japan. Even when the US does stutter, it usually doesn’t final lengthy: On Monday, the workforce was tied with China, 6-6, at halftime. China managed just one extra objective, although, and the US pulled away to win comfortably, 12-7.

Even opponents acknowledge the clear superiority of the U.S. workforce. “I really feel honored as a result of it’s my first Olympic sport, and we performed it with the US, which is the strongest on the planet,” Yumi Arima of Japan mentioned after Saturday’s demolition.

Deep and gifted, the U.S. workforce boasts two true superstars. Maggie Steffens, 28, the captain, is probably the perfect participant within the girls’s sport, the scorer of essentially the most targets and the winner of most respected participant honors at each the London and Rio Video games. Her teammate Ashleigh Johnson, 26, could be the world’s finest goalkeeper. The primary Black girl to play on the American workforce, she had the highest save share in her first Olympic Video games, in 2016.

She can be a geographical exception: Whereas, as a bunch, the gamers are largely Californians, Johnson is a Floridian who grew to become a first-team all-American at Princeton. “I’m an outsider in a whole lot of methods,” she mentioned. “Water polo isn’t a extremely popular sport in Miami.”

What Johnson and all of her teammates have, although, is the form of multidimensional intelligence that’s important of their tactical, fast-shifting sport.

“You’re taking part in three video games in relation to water polo,” mentioned Steffens, who has undergraduate and grasp’s levels from Stanford. “You’re taking part in the overwater sport that followers can see. You’re taking part in the underwater sport that nobody can see — it’s a must to be calm whereas underwater there’s all this chaos.

“And the third is the psychological sport: psychological toughness, resilience, but in addition intelligence. Water polo is sort of a transferring chess board. Each time you assume you’ve solved the issue, there’s one other transferring piece.”

In most years, the US measures itself towards an ordinary that few of its rivals ever method. However over the previous yr, it might have gained an sudden profit from the disruptions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Usually, the U.S. girls get collectively solely in summers and for 15 months resulting in an Olympics. This time, as a result of the Tokyo Video games had been delayed for a yr, 15 months became 27.

That form of prolonged togetherness has created a sixth sense among the many gamers, Johnson mentioned. “In case you can anticipate and browse what your teammate is planning on doing, and meet them the place they’re, earlier than they get there, that’s an enormous benefit,” she mentioned. “Moments when possibly they’re struggling, and you’ll step in and assist, that simply builds a depth of belief. It’s actually onerous to play towards that.

“In case your workforce is a bunch of six or seven girls who can act as one, you then may be unstoppable. That’s fairly cool.”

Can this yr’s workforce lose? The pandemic has led to disadvantages, too, as video games towards worldwide opposition have been postponed and canceled. Meaning the US performed solely 4 worldwide video games in 2020. Due to that, there could also be issues about opponents that the American gamers merely have no idea, and gained’t know till they’re within the water collectively.

“The journey has been a bit rocky,” mentioned Coach Adam Krikorian, who additionally led the US in London and Rio. “It’s labored towards us at instances. It’s powerful whenever you’re simply competing towards one another.”

Because the look forward to Tokyo went on and on, although, even his superteam risked dropping its edge. Krikorian acknowledged that throughout the pandemic he generally had hassle motivating the gamers, a few of whom had put their lives on maintain to coach for the Video games after which had been requested to take action once more. A number of members of the workforce are nicely into their second decade of elite competitors.

“Consistency and camaraderie can result in complacency,” he mentioned. “All of us having struggled over motivation, particularly during the last 15, 16 months.

“Add to that, we’ve had a lot success, and it’s pure for us to calm down slightly bit. One in all my most important tasks is to maintain this workforce on edge. I’m blessed in that they’re extremely aggressive, so it doesn’t take a complete lot to get them going.”

Steffens mentioned she motivated herself by setting apart her two earlier gold medals. “Our workforce this yr — that workforce has by no means gained an Olympic gold medal,” she mentioned.

Acknowledging that the workforce’s early video games could embody blowouts, and much more alternatives for the workforce to let down its guard, Johnson mentioned she and the opposite gamers had mentioned focusing not on the scoreboard however on the sport plan, and on the smaller battles and victories, regardless of the rating.

“Each sort of sport has its personal little psychological battle,” she mentioned. “When there’s an enormous rating disparity, it’s not essentially reflective of the workforce. We’re the perfect instruments of the opposite workforce, and making an attempt to take these away.”

Krikorian mentioned: “I am going into each sport considering that there’s probability we could lose. That enables me to remain targeted. I wish to assume there’s a trickle-down impact.”

If there’s a workforce which may have the ability to match the US in Tokyo, it may very well be Australia, the one opponent to defeat the US because the Rio Video games. The U.S. gamers and coaches pointed to the physicality of the Australians in addition to the veteran management of Bronwen Knox, who will likely be taking part in in her fourth Olympics.

However even that rivalry has hardly been an in depth competitors: In 22 encounters towards Australia since Rio, the US is 19-3.

Till they’re knocked off their perch, the U.S. stars are ready to tackle all comers. They know, they mentioned, that it’s the solely approach the game they at the moment dominate will develop.

“South Africa, that is their first time,” Steffens mentioned of different potential new rivals. “Once they go house, guess what the little women can really feel? They are saying, ‘I can beat her, I can go to the Olympics at some point.’ That’s what’s going to develop the game, particularly for ladies.

“I take into consideration Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, among the powerhouses of males’s water polo. Why can’t they be powerhouses of ladies’s water polo?”

And regardless of their very own workforce’s document of success, the gamers know the US has room to develop, too.

“Water polo is concentrated in California,” mentioned Johnson, the Princeton graduate from Miami. “There may be a lot untapped expertise within the U.S. that has but to be seen. We wish all the finest to be representing our sport.”

If that occurs, think about how good the U.S. workforce will likely be.