Water Polo at the 1972 Summer Olympics

Dates 27 August – 4 September 1972
Medal Events 1

Built specifically for the Olympics, water polo took place in 1972 at the Schwimmhale in the Olympiapark in Munich. The indoor arena hosted water polo, swimming, diving, and the swimming section of the modern pentathlon. It had seating for 9,000 in 1972 but after the Olympics was downsized to a seating capacity of 1,500.

Sixteen teams were separated into three preliminary round pools, conducted as round-robins. The top two teams from each pool advanced to the final round, again in a round-robin format. In the final round, match results from the prelims were carried over. A consolation pool was also conducted among the third- and fourth-placed teams in the preliminary round-robins.

Events

Event Status Date Participants NOCs
Water Polo, Men Olympic 27 August – 4 September 1972 176 16
176 (176/0) 16 (16/0)

Medals

Event Gold Silver Bronze
Water Polo, Men Soviet UnionURS HungaryHUN United StatesUSA

Medal table

NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total
Soviet Union URS 1 0 0 1
Hungary HUN 0 1 0 1
United States USA 0 0 1 1