Water polo at the 1988 Summer Olympics as usual was part of the swimming sport, the other two being swimming and diving. They were not seen as three separate sports, because they all were governed by one federation — FINA. Water polo discipline consisted of one event: the men's team competition.
In the preliminary round twelve teams were divided into two groups. The two best teams from each group (shaded ones) advanced to the semi-finals. The two numbers three and four played classification matches to determine places 5 through 8, with the earlier result taken with them. The rest of the teams also played classification matches to determine places 9 through 12.
Qualification QualificationDateHostBerthsQualifiedHost nation30 September 1978 Baden-Baden11986 World Championships14-22 August 1986 Madrid6Intercontinental qualification13-22 May 1988 Perth5Total12
Squads
Preliminary round Group A
21 September Italy 9-9 Soviet Union France 16-5 South Korea Australia 11-13 West Germany 22 September South Korea 1-11 Italy France 9-10 West Germany Australia 4-11 Soviet Union 23 September South Korea 2-18 West Germany Australia 5-7 Italy France 4-18 Soviet Union 26 September Italy 7-10 West Germany South Korea 4-17 Soviet Union France 6-7 Australia 27 September France 8-14 Italy Australia 13-2 South Korea Soviet Union 8-9 West Germany
Group B
21 September Hungary 12-10 Greece United States 7-6 Yugoslavia China 6-13 Spain 22 September Greece 10-7 China United States 7-9 Spain Hungary 9-10 Yugoslavia 23 September United States 14-7 China Greece 7-17 Yugoslavia Hungary 6-6 Spain 26 September United States 18-9 Greece Hungary 14-7 China Spain 8-10 Yugoslavia 27 September Greece 9-12 Spain Hungary 9-10 United States Yugoslavia 17-7 China
Final round Semi finals 30 September West Germany 10-14 Yugoslavia Soviet Union 7-8 United States
Bronze medal match 1 October West Germany 13-14 Soviet Union
Final 1 October Yugoslavia 9-7 United States
Group D
30 September Italy 9-9 Hungary Australia 8-7 Spain 1 October Australia 5-13 Hungary Italy 9-11 Spain
Group E
30 September France 11-4 China South Korea 7-17 Greece 1 October South Korea 7-14 China France 7-10 Greece
Final ranking 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Top goalscorers RankNameGoals 1 Manuel Estiarte 27 2 Pierre Garsau 20 3 András Gyöngyösi 194 Frank Otto18 Kyriakos Giannopoulos Antonis Aronis 7 Dirk Theismann 178 Igor Milanovic16 Yang Yong 10 Hagen Stamm 1511 Dmitry Apanasenko14 Giorgi Mshvenieradze Geoff Clark 14 Jordi Sans 1315 Jody Campbell12 Sergey Kotenko Alessandro Campagna Massimiliano Ferretti
See also 1986 FINA Men's World Water Polo Championship 1991 FINA Men's World Water Polo Championship
References
Sources PDF documents in the LA84 Foundation Digital Library: Official Report of the 1988 Olympic Games, v.2 (download, archive) (pp. 590–598) Water polo on the Olympedia website Water polo at the 1988 Summer Olympics (men's tournament) Water polo on the Sports Reference website Water polo at the 1988 Summer Games (men's tournament) (archived)
External links Official results