International Water Polo Boot Camp

First Day Summary

Commonwealth Place Pool in beautiful Victoria, BC was the scene of some top notch age group water polo, as the number one ranked Brazilian club "SESI SP" began a five day match series against local, provincial and North American talent.
The Brazilian boys, guests of Water Polo Canada - and hosted by the local club Saanich Water Polo - will be playing a 4 team round robin match series daily against talent ID water polo players from the province as well as guests from California and Puerto Rico.
The five day camp began officially this morning with a "Hungarian Style Bootcamp"" practice.  The evening was - and will be for the next few days - devoted to a match series every night. Results and pictures are attached and portray the energy and excitement in the air!

Second and Third day summary

Training and matches are going strong into day three of camp.  With approximately 5-6 hours of pool time daily (split between the morning and the evening), one would think that the athletes may be a bit tired.  However this is not exhibited in the spirited energetic play.

Tuesday night's match series was visited by the local media, while tonight there was a very exciting game between SESI and the players of mainland Vancouver's Fraser Valley team - winners of the Canadian Cadet Water Polo nationals.  The nail bitingly exciting game was close throughout with SESI winning by one goal in the end.

Spending some time on dry land as well, the athletes had a chance to match skills in soccer on Tuesday morning, then went to beaver Lake for a rest between the AM and PM practices.

Today the crew explored the city in a tour bus and landed for a couple of hours at Willows beach where even some of the coaches cooled off in the cool ocean.

Enjoy our picture report - hopefully it gives back some of the ambiance and energy we are all enjoying.

by Ferenc, August 2008, Saanich Water Polo School