Hungary writes waterpolo history Options

[Baronius]

After Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004), Hungary wins the water polo gold medal in Beijing as well (and remains the most successful country in the history of water polo). So far, only the UK managed to get more than two gold medals in a row in water polo (at the beginning of the 20th century).

You were FANTASTIC, guys! Thank you for the great match! Thank you for helping to keep Hungary in the top 10 of the most successful countries of the modern Olympic Games! Thank you for setting an example for the young! Also, a giant amount of credit goes to Dénes Kemény, the coach/manager of the Hungarian team. Excellent work, Dénes!

The final (Hungary vs. USA) was really exciting. The United States proved to be a powerful and challenging opponent. It was a great final.

[Baronius]

Indeed, they make mistakes, they can't see everything. They can't follow every minor detail of a match with 100% accuracy. For example, it happened in the waterpolo final as well: the referee didn't notice that the American goalkeeper's hand touched the ball and it went out from there. It would be unfair to say that the referees were biased -- they weren't; as you've said, they're humans too.

However, when the referees seem to miss several events (faults) for one of the teams, and interestingly seem to notice (and strongly penalize) the same types of faults for the other team (at the most exciting moments, when the scores of the teams are equal), one starts to be suspicious that it isn't an accident. In this concrete case, I believe nothing else happened than that the Russian referees wanted to correct/compensate their earlier mistake with the Koreans (in the Norway-Korea match).