On the way to Edmonton - Olympic qualifiers home page goes online

The next big waterpolo event is less than nine weeks ahead. The FINA Men’s Olympic Games Qualification Tournament will be held 1-8 April in Edmonton, Canada where the last four of only twelve Olympic Games participants will be created. The hosting federation Water Polo Canada has launched a championship homepage for this event – it will be the first one in the history of this competition.

The participants in the Olympic Games Qualification Tournament are expected to be announced by the FINA in the upcoming days. At last week’s European Championships in Eindhoven, Netherlands the teams from Montenegro, Germany, Greece, Spain and Romania took the regular spots of the European representatives, but they might be joined by other nations in case of vacancies.

The upcoming matches will be held at the swimming pool of Kinsmen Sport Centre, where the swimming and diving competition of the 1978 Commonwealth Games were held as well. The previous Olympic qualification tournament events were held in Oradea, Romania in 2008, Brazil’s metropolis Rio de Janeiro in 2004 and the two German cities of Hanover and Berlin, 2000 and 1996 respectively. The current competition system with a maximum of twelve teams and two groups of six in the prelims was introduced in 2004.


http://www.finaedmonton2012.ca/