How the US Olympic water polo team trains for the toughest sport in the world
The US women's water polo team is looking for an unprecedented fourth gold medal in a row at the Olympics. We follow the team through a demanding training session as they prepare for a crucial match against a formidable rival, team Italy. This is one of their last games before heading to the Olympics, where they will meet again. Some of the key players are coach Adam Krikorian, attacker Maddie Musselman, and goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson. This is what drives them to excel in one of the toughest sports on the planet.
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00:00This is one of the most difficult sports in the world to play.
00:04You're grabbing, you're pushing, you're kicking.
00:07There's no rest. Our rest is work.
00:10I'm counting the clock, I'm watching the ball.
00:13We're talking about the greatest women's water polo program of all time.
00:21The U.S. women's water polo team is on the brink of making history at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
00:28No other women's national team has won gold more than once, and the U.S. is going for its fourth.
00:37The legacy of the USA women's water polo team is a tremendous one.
00:41They've won the last three Olympic golds, they've won eight world championships,
00:44they have set quite literally a gold standard in the sport that every other country is currently chasing.
00:50Water polo is a team endeavor, but every sport has players who set the standard for greatness.
00:59Ashley Johnson, one of the greatest goalies to ever play the game.
01:02She's one of the best goalkeepers in the world, maybe the sport has ever seen.
01:06Ashley as an athlete is ferocious. She puts her all into her game.
01:12Water polo is pretty physical, like a lot of people kick, a lot of people grab suit.
01:16One of the hardest parts about water polo is it's two games, underwater and over water.
01:21You are pushing yourself past your limits physically, mentally, emotionally, every single day.
01:27We filmed with Team USA in June 2024, as they prepared for one of their final matches before heading to the Olympics.
01:34I hate to lose, and that's kind of sometimes what drives me to win. I'm like, I want to win.
01:40Like, I'm going to win at all costs.
01:43So what makes water polo such a brutal sport? And how do you become second to none?
01:50I mean, someone turned the alarm off over there.
01:55We're five weeks away from going to the Olympic Games.
01:59At this stage, we want to do everything well.
02:04We've got you clowns who aren't ready to train this week, still on vacation in Barcelona.
02:10We've got the age group kids over there.
02:12I'm glad we got this on TV. This is the life of the U.S. women's national team.
02:19This year's roster includes seasoned Olympians like goalkeeper Ashley Johnson, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
02:26Attacker Maddie Musselman, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
02:30And team players from all over the world.
02:32This year's roster includes seasoned Olympians like goalkeeper Ashley Johnson, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
02:38Attacker Maddie Musselman, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
02:42And team captain Maggie Steffens, a three-time Olympic gold medalist.
02:46All led by coach Adam Krikorian.
02:49I think everyone understands the physicality.
02:52And I think when you watch, you might think it's hard, and it is hard.
02:57But what's even harder is what's done here, in practice.
03:00I got news for you. I cannot play. I cannot tell you what to do.
03:05When you are playing, think about it.
03:17I woke up probably around 5.45. It takes me about 30 minutes to drive here.
03:21We usually do like warm-up for about 15 to 20 minutes.
03:24And usually Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays we lift in the mornings before we swim.
03:30For elite players, leg strength is key.
03:33This helps them execute a fundamental but challenging maneuver called the egg beater, which they'll use in the pool later.
03:41If you see us in the gym, we're doing heavy squats.
03:43We're doing things that are fast so that we get those fast twitch muscles going.
03:47And working with bouncing tennis balls, when you can't see the tennis ball coming at you from behind,
03:53and then it might change direction. It might come a little faster, one might come a little slower.
03:57So it helps us react in the moment to whatever is coming.
04:02And the training pays off.
04:04The average safe percentage for a women's water polo goalie is between 45 and 58 percent.
04:09Ashley's average is above that.
04:11At the 2016 Rio Olympics, she ended the games with a safe percentage of nearly 65 percent.
04:18Going into today's practice, it's a little hot, so I'm excited to get in the water.
04:28One minute. Next bottom. Next bottom.
04:34Chris Oding, he's our swim coach, pretty much. You usually swim like 3,000 yards.
04:40Fours.
04:43Five.
04:45And then usually do some stations, passing, shooting, usually working on specific defenses
04:50or specific teams that we're going to see at the Olympics.
04:52Hey, so we're working specifically on our shot blocking.
04:56Maybe you're diving in on the block because you don't want to leave one open.
05:01Shot!
05:06Hey, hey, hold up, hold up. You're not ready to train at all this week.
05:09I mean, you came in yesterday, we got in the water, no one was ready to practice at all.
05:15Do we want to give up a four-to-one pass, guys?
05:18Why the hell do I need to tell you that? Why?
05:25I mean, you're common sense.
05:29Sometimes when you feel too good about yourself, that can be just as dangerous
05:32as not feeling great about yourself, so it's my responsibility to keep us in check
05:37and, again, to kind of bring us down into this level right in the middle.
05:42Training is both physically and mentally taxing,
05:45and water's not the only element they're up against.
05:48Contact lenses are just beneficial for your eyes overall,
05:51so thinking about the time that we spend in the sun, the reflection off the water
05:55can cause a lot of damage, sunspots on our eyes.
05:57Mine are super red because I like this, they suit my eyes way better out here,
06:01and then there's ones that are a little bit darker,
06:03so they're just a little bit more reflective,
06:05and then there's ones that are a little bit darker,
06:08They're super red because I like this, they suit my eyes way better out here,
06:11and then there's ones that are black, but give a different kind of scary look.
06:16Maddie, Joe, Tara, Maggie, Rachel, and Jenna put on blue caps.
06:23Everyone else put on white caps.
06:27This is how we distinguish ourselves in the water.
06:30Our jersey number, our cap number, right here on our head.
06:34This is super important, and we wear these ear guards, not so we can hear better.
06:39It is to protect our ears.
06:41A lot of times, water polo's super physical.
06:43There's elbows, there's arms kicking underwater.
06:48People would be shocked to realize just how much time we spend on just the simplest things.
06:53Hands are out, hands are out!
06:56And doing those simple skills right, and doing them not just right every once in a while,
07:00but doing them right every single day.
07:02Like the egg beater.
07:04This is our standing. It allows us to stay above water and play this game.
07:09The move is similar to a breaststroke kick,
07:12but players alternate their leg movement, rather than kicking both legs in sync.
07:17I think some of the biggest misconceptions, one being that we touch the bottom of the pool,
07:22we get asked that so often.
07:24Over the course of a game, players tread water for about 40 minutes
07:28and swim an average of just under two miles.
07:31This is what we call our dribbling.
07:33So we put the ball in front of our face,
07:35and we use our elbows and our strokes to almost create a channel for the ball to float.
07:41You're using every single muscle in your body.
07:44You can even see the concentration and focus in her face.
07:48Being able to pass the ball accurately,
07:50and being able to elevate yourself out of the water,
07:53takes a tremendous amount of leg strength.
07:56One player who excels at this is Maddie Musselman.
08:01Maddie, one of the best attackers in the game.
08:06She's one of the fastest players in the world,
08:08and there's moments in which she almost seems like she's covering two or three people instead of one.
08:13Her technical abilities helped her earn the title of MVP at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
08:18In 2021, she was named Total Water Polo Player of the Year,
08:22one of the most prestigious titles in the sport.
08:25The following year, she received that honor for the second time.
08:28She's got what we call an incredible vertical game,
08:31so she can elevate her body out of the water really high,
08:34to the point where she's such a threat for us offensively from the perimeter with her shooting ability.
08:39And then she also just moves in the water maybe better than anyone else in the world.
08:45So her ability to be able to cover space in a quick amount of time
08:49allows us to be able to be really effective defensively.
08:55It is one of the hardest sports in the world,
08:57because it's a combination of so many sports in one.
08:59The movements are really hard, so sometimes you accidentally just get hit.
09:02I've broken my nose and fingers.
09:04I've broken a lot of things playing water polo.
09:08That's one of the challenges in this sport as well,
09:10is to make sure you're matching the intensity and the aggressiveness of the team,
09:15but not going overboard as well.
09:19And the shot.
09:22In 2011, Bleacher Report named water polo the toughest sport in the world.
09:27With that being said, it is the easiest sport to quit.
09:32And not just quit entirely, but even quit in the drill, quit in the practice,
09:37or not necessarily give 100%.
09:39It's my job to be a spark of inspiration,
09:42or maybe a little kick in the pants to get them going in the right direction,
09:46to push them through a tough period.
09:48Adam Krikorian has carved out a legacy as perhaps the greatest women's water polo coach ever.
09:53He joined the USA National Team in 2009, and since he took over Team USA,
09:57all he has done is taken a very good team and turned them into a great team.
10:02Perhaps his strongest skill is getting a group of 13 to coalesce as one towards a common goal.
10:09That common goal for the next few training sessions is to prepare to face off against Italy in nine days.
10:16Maggie, you go to position two.
10:20So Adam this morning told us that this afternoon we have situations,
10:24and for me it's really important to put myself in a game situation.
10:29So in training, we're already living that moment.
10:31Whether it happens or not, we've been there. We've done that.
10:39Hey, that's a good drive.
10:42Yeah, and cut her off. You can get open there.
10:46If not, maybe you get her to hold you or something.
10:50There are seven newcomers on this team, which presents its own challenges.
10:55We're a little bit inexperienced in some positions, so we're going to have to be tougher.
11:00You're going to enter in, and then we'll just attack that.
11:02So when you get that ball, you can look for Ryan,
11:05but if the defense gets sucked down, you've got Emily kind of stepping in right behind it for center.
11:10This is not an overnight process.
11:12By the time you make the Olympic team, you've been training at an extremely high level,
11:16and so no one came out of left field to make this team.
11:19They've been earning their place over and over again.
11:22When that ball goes, so you watch the ball, and then you're making this move down,
11:28and then as soon as you go like this to worry about where Maggie is,
11:31that ball goes right over your head, right?
11:33So we've got to make that movement and have an idea of where she is without actually looking,
11:39or else the ball is going to go right over her head.
11:42I don't think we're quite as talented as we've been in the past,
11:45but ultimately the story is yet to be written.
11:48I want you to have a day and a half off before we start on Sunday,
11:52but we need to be ready to go on Sunday.
11:55It's going to be a hard two weeks, but guess what?
11:57The Olympic Games are two weeks long.
11:59It's not like one week, and then we go home.
12:03It's two weeks, and the second week is more important than the first week.
12:06So obviously making sure that you're doing everything you can
12:09to just take care of yourselves a little bit.
12:11Wash your hands. The stomach bug is going around.
12:13Wash your hands. Most importantly, everyone.
12:16Wash your hands. Stay healthy.
12:18Stay away from me.
12:19Don't look at me.
12:21Ashley, stay away from me.
12:23There she is.
12:31It got canceled this morning, ironically.
12:33Yeah, some people are sick,
12:35and so our coach kind of gave us the morning off to sleep,
12:38and we'll go back in the afternoon.
12:42Hey, come on. Over here. There you go.
12:45Her goal was to make that team, always.
12:49I wrote in my sixth grade yearbook
12:51that I wanted to be an Olympic water polo player,
12:53so my Olympic dream started pretty young.
12:55I, like, honestly don't remember writing this.
12:58It's kind of cool that my brain at that age
13:00It's kind of cool that my brain at that age
13:02was, like, already thinking about it
13:04and was like, let's accomplish it,
13:06and now looking back on it, like, I've done it twice,
13:09and I'm going for my third,
13:11and it's pretty cool to see, like, things come to fruition.
13:14Yeah, I put it in the sock I got at the Olympics.
13:17It's pretty old.
13:19This is Rio.
13:22And then Tokyo.
13:25Yeah, so this is...
13:27Olympia is always on one side,
13:29and then the host country designs the other side.
13:34When she started getting serious about polo,
13:37it was more people outside our family would watch her play
13:41and, you know, talked about her being able to do things
13:43in the water that others couldn't do,
13:45and, of course, we weren't familiar with the sports.
13:47We didn't really understand what that was,
13:49and when Adam and others came,
13:51and we started talking about how she could train
13:53at the national level for us,
13:55it became, wow, she was all about the journey.
13:58I think Maddie was 15 or 16 at the time,
14:02so she was a puppy,
14:04and Ashley wasn't too much older.
14:07Ashley Johnson's career in water polo
14:09is one of a really special trajectory.
14:11She was the first black woman
14:13to ever make a U.S. Olympic women's water polo team,
14:16and so she's added this extra element
14:18of being a pioneer in the sport
14:20and you wrap all that together,
14:22and you have one of the most influential people in the game.
14:25I got into the sport kind of by chance.
14:28I grew up in a house that had a pool in the backyard.
14:31First of all, my mom didn't know how to swim,
14:34but she put us into a sport that kind of scared her in some ways,
14:37but the fear pushed her to make us experts in it.
14:41I don't think Ashley ever dreamed
14:43of becoming a member of the Olympic team,
14:47but once there, she saw her role.
14:52To be the first African American
14:54to represent the U.S. on the Olympic stage,
14:56it means the world to me.
14:58It's a huge responsibility, first off,
15:00and I didn't understand that responsibility when I was young.
15:03I didn't know why there weren't more people who looked like me here.
15:07Ashley's success in water polo
15:09not only challenges the exclusion
15:11of African American athletes in aquatic sports,
15:13but opens the door for more representation
15:16for female athletes in general.
15:18My story is a part of a bigger story,
15:21and in that context, me being here and representing us
15:25and people who look like us
15:27creates a space where we're telling a new story.
15:30We belong here, we thrive here, we excel here.
15:33This is a picture of Ashley in one of the summer tournaments.
15:37She did well, won all her matches.
15:40In fact, one parent came to me
15:42and told me that her daughter spent all night
15:45wishing that Ashley would be sick so that she could win.
15:51I have always felt that the game depended on her, always.
15:58So if they lost, I'm like, oh my gosh, Ashley lost the game.
16:02But I don't feel that way anymore.
16:04At this high level, it's a team sport,
16:07and the game depends on everybody in the game.
16:11But with the game against Italy fast approaching,
16:14it's important that Team USA doesn't underestimate their opponent.
16:18We kind of have a little bit of a rivalry with them.
16:22We lost to them a summer ago at World Championships,
16:25so every opportunity that you get to play them again
16:28is always really exciting.
16:30That's a thing that kind of sticks with us still.
16:32I think that keeps us humble, keeps us motivated.
16:37This is the final match of our two-game series between our visitors,
16:41the Italian Women's National Team,
16:43and your home team, Team USA.
16:47Starting with the captain, number 6, Maggie Stephens.
16:51Number 1, Ashley Johnson.
16:53Number 2, Maddie Musselman.
16:56I'm just really excited to play Italy.
16:58They're a great team, they're one of the best in the world,
17:00and they always play with a lot of passion,
17:02and that's what we're going to face at the Olympics.
17:06Ashley Johnson, the U.S. man.
17:11As they race in, the ball drops in.
17:16The sport of water polo is like a lot of other sports that you already know.
17:19Four 8-minute quarters, an all-deep pool,
17:21there's a shot clock just like basketball, and it's pretty simple.
17:23Put the ball in the back of the net, most goals wins.
17:27And the captain, Maggie Stephens, with the goal.
17:31A lot of times in sport, a goal scorer gets the media, right?
17:35Or they get talked about.
17:36But guess what?
17:37There's so many little moments happening all around you,
17:40and that's what makes the game so special.
17:43The toughest part about being a goalkeeper for me,
17:46it's really staying in the moment.
17:52One thing is like counting the clock,
17:54saying the position of the ball as it moves around.
18:02It's really helpful for my teammates to stay in the same moment together.
18:10I'm here, and there's nowhere else I can be.
18:13And if I'm not talking, I'm probably like looking up into the clouds for a second.
18:19And the shot, good for the goal.
18:21Straight to the reference, number four, Sylvia Benyamin.
18:25Both teams are back in full strength.
18:32And that's the game.
18:33And with that final buzzer, Team USA wraps up a two-game series,
18:37earning a 14-6 victory.
18:41Ashley Johnson had eight saves and ended the game with a save percentage of around 57%.
18:46Maddie Musselman scored one goal,
18:48and Jenna Flynn, who's making her Olympic debut in Paris, scored three,
18:52proving the newcomers have no shortage of skill.
18:55We got off to a slow start, but I was happy the way we responded.
18:59I think anytime you can hold a team to six goals,
19:01it's a job well done for us defensively.
19:05With the opportunity to play a game just before the Olympics
19:09and get that preparation, making them remember what it's like to play the USA,
19:13you kind of want to get out there, get after them, and instill that fear a bit.
19:16So I think a win is great, but at the same time,
19:18there are things to learn from and things to get better from.
19:21We still have yet to put together a game, a full game that we love,
19:24but there are some really cool moments there.
19:26We're getting to see different shooters.
19:28We're getting to see different plays,
19:30and we're getting to see Italy in their prime right before they get to the Olympics.
19:34So it's nice to come away with a win, but we have a long way to go, so I'm excited.
19:41The reality is, when you've had as much success as this team has had,
19:46we're talking about sustained success.
19:49It's never just one thing, right?
19:51It's a multitude of things.
19:53It's a million things that we've done right over the course of the last 12 years.
19:58There's no guarantee we're going to end up on top of the podium,
20:01but at least we're going to be putting ourselves in the best position possible to have success.
20:05And if we finish on top of the mountain like we have before,
20:08I'm sure it's going to be an elating feeling,
20:10but we can't take our foot off the gas pedal now.