50 free Water Polo trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Water polo has been on the Olympic programme since 1900, yet most people know only that it is brutal and that something happened between Hungary and the Soviet Union in 1956. This quiz goes well beyond that match. It starts at the Arlington Baths Club in Glasgow, where a baths master wrote the first rules for a game then called water rugby, and follows the sport into the Seine in Paris, a pond in St Louis and a temporary arena in London. The 50 questions cover rules and kit (why keepers wear red, how long a quarter runs, where penalties are taken, why sunscreen is forbidden), the great players and coaches (Manuel Estiarte, Dezső Gyarmati, Maggie Steffens, Ratko Rudić), the dominant nations from Hungary to Serbia and the United States women, and oddities like surf polo on Waikiki and the dry pass invented in 1928. The expert tier asks about the 1890 Providence championships, the yellow ball and the 18,473 fans in Belgrade. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss. Play solo or print it for an Olympics night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many players from each team are in the water at one time?
7
Six field players plus a goalkeeper; the bench can hold up to six substitutes.
Q 02In which country is water polo thought to have originated?
Scotland
The sport grew out of 'water rugby' played at the Arlington Baths Club in Glasgow, a club founded in 1870.
Q 03Which swimming instructor is credited with drawing up the first rules of the game?
William Wilson
Wilson, baths master at Glasgow's Arlington Baths Club, also wrote The Swimming Instructor, one of the earliest books on swimming.
Q 04The 'polo' in water polo comes from a Balti word meaning what?
Ball
Early players called the game 'water rugby' or 'aquatic football' before the Balti-derived name stuck.
Q 05In which year did men's water polo first appear at the Olympic Games?
1900
It was among the first team sports at the modern Games, alongside cricket, rugby, football, rowing and tug of war.
Q 06Which country won the first Olympic water polo tournament?
Great Britain
Seven European teams from four countries took part, four of them from host nation France.
Q 07Women's water polo made its Olympic debut at which Games?
Sydney 2000
Six nations entered that first women's tournament.
Q 08Which country won the first women's Olympic water polo gold medal?
Australia
Yvette Higgins scored the winner from a nine-metre free throw with 1.3 seconds on the clock.
Q 09How many men's Olympic water polo golds has Hungary won, the record?
Nine
Add three silvers and four bronzes, and no other nation comes close.
Q 10The 1956 'Blood in the Water' match pitted Hungary against which team?
Soviet Union
It was played in Melbourne weeks after Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution; Hungary won 4–0.
Q 11Which Hungarian player's bleeding eye gave the 1956 match its nickname?
Ervin Zádor
Zádor missed the final through the injury and defected to the West after the Games.
Q 12Who did Hungary beat 2–1 in the 1956 Olympic final after the Blood in the Water match?
Yugoslavia
It was Hungary's fourth Olympic title; half the Hungarian delegation defected after the Games.
Q 13Which 2006 feature film dramatised the 1956 match and the Hungarian Revolution?
Children of Glory
Directed by Krisztina Goda, it opened in Hungarian cinemas on 23 October 2006, the revolution's 50th anniversary.
Q 21Hungarian coach Béla Komjádi is credited with inventing which technique in 1928?
The dry pass
Catching the ball before it touched the water made attacks faster and underpinned 60 years of Hungarian dominance.
Q 22Which kick lets water polo players stay upright with their hands free?
Eggbeater
It is an alternating one-legged breaststroke kick, also used by artistic swimmers and lifeguards.
Q 23What colour cap do water polo goalkeepers wear?
Red
Field players wear numbered dark or white caps fitted with ear protectors.
What cap number does a substitute goalkeeper wear under FINA international rules?
Q 14Which Olympic swimmer narrated the documentary Freedom's Fury about the 1956 match?
Mark Spitz
Quentin Tarantino described the documentary as 'the best untold story ever'.
Q 15Which player holds the record for most Olympic water polo goals, with 127?
Manuel Estiarte
He scored 34 at Los Angeles 1984 alone, still the record for a single tournament.
Q 16Spain won its first Olympic men's water polo gold in 1996 by beating which team 7–5?
Croatia
Four years earlier Spain had lost its home final in Barcelona in extra time.
Q 17At Barcelona 1992, Spain lost the men's final 9–8 in extra time to which team?
Italy
Spain went ahead from a penalty 42 seconds from time, only to concede nine seconds later.
Q 18Which coach led three different nations to Olympic men's water polo gold?
Ratko Rudić
Yugoslavia in 1984 and 1988, then Italy in 1992 and Croatia in 2012; he later coached Brazil at Rio 2016.
Q 19Hungary's Dezső Gyarmati won Olympic water polo medals at how many consecutive Games?
Five
Three golds (1952, 1956, 1964), a silver in 1948 and a bronze in 1960; he later coached Hungary to gold in 1976.
Q 20Which Olympic swimming champion did Dezső Gyarmati marry?
Éva Székely
Their daughter Andrea Gyarmati won two Olympic swimming medals in 1972.
13
NCAA play uses a different number; the starting keeper is always number 1.
Q 25A 20-second exclusion for a major foul is commonly known as what?
A kick out
The player may return early if the attacking team scores or the defence regains the ball.
Q 26How long is each quarter of an Olympic water polo match?
8 minutes
The clock stops whenever the ball is dead, so a quarter takes around 12 minutes of real time.
Q 27From which line are penalty throws taken?
5 metres
Before 2005 the pool was marked with 4- and 7-metre lines instead.
Q 28Which numbered ball do men use in water polo?
Size 5
Women use a size 4, roughly three centimetres smaller in circumference.
Q 29The yellow water polo ball became the official Olympic ball in which year?
1956
Jimmy Smith's 1936 rubber-covered ball was originally red; yellow was adopted by 1948 for visibility.
Q 30Why do governing bodies forbid water polo players from using sunscreen?
It makes them slippery to grip
Sunburn is a common minor injury in outdoor matches as a result.