Wednesday, March 29, 2023

2024 LEN European Water Polo Championships Qualifiers and 2023 U17 and U15 European Championships



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 

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