The draws for the 2024 LEN European Water Polo Championships Qualifiers and 2023 age-group European Championships will be conducted in Sabadell on Saturday, prior to the final matches of the Champions League Women Final Four tournament. At the age-group championships, a brand-new playing format shall be applied and the draws will reflect on this.
The men’s qualification tournaments for the 2024 Europeans will feature a barely seen participant – the Olympic title-holder Serbian team, failing to reach the best eight in Split in 2022, have to play for a championship berth in June. Seven spots are to be filled as host Israel have been added to the eight already qualified sides (teams finished 1-8th last September). It means that the four group-winners and the three best second-ranked teams will advance to the final tournament (based on the points gained, and in case of equality, the goal-difference will determine who can play in Israel in 2024).
As for the women’s competition, Israel managed to make the top eight, so here eight berths are available – as for the first time ever, 16 teams will play for the women’s title.
There is a major change for the age-group championships – all four events (U17 men and women, U15 men and women) shall be played with a new playing format. In line with World Aquatics and their junior Worlds, the preliminaries of the respective European Championships will be divided between the higher seeded teams and those coming from the qualifications.
The eight top-ranked sides at each championship will be drawn into two groups of four (A and B), so these stronger teams will already play a series of highlighted matches in the prelims. The top two ranked teams from both groups shall advance directly to the quarter-finals.
At the same time, the qualified teams will also be sorted to two groups of four (C and D) and will play a round-robin tournament as well. At the end, the top ranked teams will play crossover matches with the 4th placed sides from Group A and B, while the second ranked ones from C and D will clash with the third ranked ones from Group A and B. The winners of these crossover matches will reach the quarter-finals – from that stage the competition will continue as usual. (The boys’ U15 championship will be an exception as all 26 entered teams will play, so here, besides the top eight, the remaining teams will be drawn into groups C, D, E and F).
LEN will offer free live streaming of the draws – the marathon kicks off at 12.00 CET and all six draws will be conducted in succession till 13.30.
Draws – batches
2024 European Water Polo Championships
Qualification Tournaments (22-25 June 2023)
Men
Already qualified
CRO, HUN, ESP, ITA, GRE, FRA, MNE, GEO + ISR (Organiser)
Batches for the qualifications
1st Batch: SRB, ROU, NED, GER
2nd Batch: MLT, SVK, SLO, LTU
3rd Batch: SUI, TUR, UKR, POL
4th Batch: BUL, FIN, GBR, POR
Organisers: MLT, NED, TUR, SLO
Women
Already qualified
ESP, GRE, ITA, NED, HUN, ISR, FRA, CRO
Batches for the qualifications
1st Batch: SRB, GER, ROU, SVK
2nd Batch: SUI, POR, TUR, MLT, UKR
3rd Batch: BUL, CZE, FIN, GBR, SWE
Organisers: ROU, SRB, POR, BUL
European U17 Water Polo Championships
Men (9-15 August, Manisa, TUR)
1st Batch: SRB, GRE, HUN, ESP
2nd Batch: MNE, CRO, NED, ITA
3rd Batch: GEO, FRA, ROU, MLT
4th Batch: TUR, GER, UKR, POL
Women (29 July–5 August, Manisa, TUR)
1st Batch: GRE, HUN, ITA, NED
2nd Batch: ESP, CRO, ISR, FRA
3rd Batch: SRB, SVK, UKR, MLT
4th Batch: GBR, ROU, TUR, IRL, SUI
European U15 Water Polo Championships
Men (8-16 July, Podgorica, MNE)
1st Batch: HUN, ESP, GRE, CRO
2nd Batch: ITA, SRB, TUR, MNE
3rd Batch: ROU, POL, MLT, FRA, GEO
4th Batch: BIH, BUL, CZE, GER, IRL, ISR, LTU, MDA, NED, SVK, SLO, SUI, UKR
Women (24-30 June, Zagreb, CRO)
1st Batch: HUN, ESP, GRE, ITA
2nd Batch: CRO, NED, ISR, SRB
3rd Batch: CZE, GER, IRL, ROU, SVK, TUR, UKR
Official documents attached here: EC U15, EC U17 (Junior), EC Senior. |
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