Games, World Cup and European Championship for Spanish women who win the second Olympic gold for a women’s team after the hockey team in Barcelona 1992
MADRID, 10 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish women’s water polo team made history this Saturday, August 10, 2024, by winning their first Olympic gold medal, in their third final and after two silver medals, after beating Australia and signing the golden triple crown and thus following in the wake, now almost dissipated, of the first and so far only gold by a Spanish women’s team that the ‘golden girls’ achieved in Barcelona, 92.
A golden history of Spanish sport. This team, coached by Miki Oca, who also has his double – Olympic golds as a player (Atlanta 1996) and as a coach – is already one of the best Spanish teams of all time, regardless of gender or sport, as it has a triple golden crown.
They won the 2013 World Cup in Barcelona, playing at home in Piscines Bernat Picornell, where they began to discover the potential of a group that still survives, beyond Miki Oca, the players Anni Espar, Maica García, Pili Peña and the goalkeeper Laura Ester. They won the World Cup, precisely, against Australia (6-8).
They also have up to three continental titles, with the European Championships in Budapest 2014, Budapest 2020 and Split 2022. With four consecutive continental podiums, adding the bronze in Barcelona 2018 and the recent silver in Eindhoven 2024, in a tournament lost on penalties to the Netherlands against whom they got revenge in Paris.
And in the waters of La Défense in Paris, they have achieved the long-awaited triple crown, with a first Olympic Games victory that gives this group the glory they sought in Tokyo 2020 and London 2012, when they reached the final only to lose against the United States. Third time lucky.
This triple crown in women’s water polo has only previously been achieved at European level by Italy and the Netherlands. Spain joins them and does so after this unprecedented national success in a sport that continues to strive to bring joy and win medals at major tournaments.
Spain also joins Italy as the only country to have had both its men’s and women’s teams win Olympic gold. And the great proof of this is Miki Oca, the current women’s coach, who already has a personal goal that, placed behind the collective goal, will surely make him happy. In Atlanta 1996 he won gold as a player, in the water, and now he has achieved a precious double.
A Miki Oca who since he took over the women’s team in 2010 has been on many of the great podiums, with the exception of the Rio 2016 Games (fifth), the World Championships of 2011, 2015 or 2022 or the European Championships of 2010 – his first major tournament – and 2012. In the rest, a medal is guaranteed. And this, the Olympic gold, is his 13th medal as women’s coach.
THE ‘WATER WARRIORS’ EQUAL THE ‘GOLDEN GIRLS’ OF HOCKEY
This gold medal is of great value due to the scarcity of Olympic gold medals in women’s team events. Only the ‘Golden Girls’ of women’s field hockey had managed to win at an Olympic Games, and that was in Barcelona 1992. It took 32 years for someone to emulate them and 28 for Spanish water polo to once again become Olympic champions.
In fact, only hockey in Barcelona 1992, basketball in Rio 2016 (they lost the final to the United States) and water polo (having previously lost finals in London and Tokyo) knew what it was like to play in a women’s Olympic final.
And the ‘Water Warriors’ finally equal and continue the success of the ‘Golden Girls’ of hockey, those players who caused a stir as hosts in a sport in which no other medal has ever been won in the women’s tournament before or since. For now, water polo already has three Olympic medals and hopes to continue this feat.