In one of the biggest upsets at the Paris Games, Editor at Large Louise Evans watches Australia fell the USA giants in the women’s water polo.
An outstanding, sudden-death save by goalkeeper Gabi Palm destroyed the dream of the three-time American Olympic water polo champions and handed Australia’s women their first gold-medal contest in 24 years.
After scoring one of the biggest upsets at the Paris Olympics the Australia players and supporters exploded on the Paris pool deck into tears and screams.
Australia now plays the equally-undefeated Spanish team for the Olympic title in Paris where they are guaranteed their first medal since winning bronze at the 2012 London Olympics.
The breathless Stingers captain Zoe Arancini said she was “over the moon”. “We’re going to celebrate this one and get ready for gold. We had self belief. Our aim was to have fun and be energetic and ruthless.”
Australia was down 0-2 before the tide turned and the Stingers began dominating possession by playing entertaining, exciting, relentless water polo in front of a boisterous 15,000-strong crowd.
Abby Andrews, 23, a finance and economics university student, who had scored nine goals heading into the semi final played with great pace and aggression.
She proved a lethal weapon for Australia, drilling four consecutive goals in the third quarter to level the score 6-6.
It totally rattled the reigning Americans, who started to show nerves and fatigue as the pressure mounted.
“I knew after I scored the first one that I’d try again because I’d worked which way their goalie (the legendary Ashleigh Johnson) was going,” Andrews said.
US captain Maggie Steffens admitted it was a turning point and praised Andrews’s temerity.
“A pivotal moment was when we were up 5-2 and they immediately came back,” Steffens said. “That would have been a great time to possess the ball and get one more goal, but they were super strong and resilient, and Abby Andrews was great there as well. They were able to put the ball away when we couldn’t.”
With the scores locked 8-8 at full time and again at 13-13 after the five-shots-each in extra time, it was goalkeeper Palm, 26, who made the save to stop the USA assault in sudden death and record an historic 14-13 victory.
Showing extraordinary reflexes and reaction Palm, a Bachelor of Behavioural Science graduate, was a lion in the cage. “I just hone the ball, clear my mind and concentrate on the shot,” said Palm, who made 14 saves during the edge-of-the-seat match.
The Stingers path to the Paris Olympic final has been extraordinary. They won all their four pool matches defeating China (7-5), the Netherlands (15-14) in a penalty shootout, Canada (10-7) and Hungary (14-12) in another penalty shootout.
The Stingers came up against Greece in their quarterfinal, and won that match too (9-6), a victory that reduced the tough Australians to tears.
It was an emotional win because it broke a 12-year Olympic quarter final drought. The Stingers have won three Olympic medals since water polo was introduced for women at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. They won gold in Sydney 2000, and bronze in Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
They then suffered a two-Games drought when they lost the quarter-finals in 2016 Rio and 2021 Tokyo. The victory over Greece broke the drought and triggered the tears.
In the quarters Andrews scored a pivotal counter-attack second goal. “We knew this time around that Greece wanted to play us,” Andrews said. “So we wanted to put the nail in the coffin early and stamp our authority on that game. I think we did that.”
All that stands between Australia and a second Olympic gold medal is the Spanish team, who are the defending silver medallists.
Your Saturday night is sorted. History beckons at 22:00-01:00 AEST.
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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