Water polo at the 1904 Summer Olympics

Men's water polo
at the Games of the III Olympiad
Men's water polo; at the Games of the III Olympiad
	Water polo game during 1904 Summer Olympics.
Venue	U.S. Life Saving Exhibit Lake
Date	September 5 (semifinal) ; September 6 (final)
Competitors	21 from 1 nation
Medalists
	← 1900 1908 →

At the 1904 Summer Olympics, a water polo tournament was contested, with three club teams of seven players each.^[1] A German team tried to enter, but its entry was refused because their players did not play for the same club.^[2]

The event took place in an artificial lake in Forest Park, the location of both the Olympics and the World's Fair.^[3] Two of the Olympians died of typhoid fever soon after the competition, possibly from contamination caused by livestock at the opposite end of the lake.^[2]^[4]^[5]

Previously, the International Olympic Committee and International Swimming Federation (FINA) considered the water polo event at the 1904 Olympics as a demonstration sport.^[1] However, in July 2021, after accepting the recommendation of Olympic historian Bill Mallon, the IOC recognized water polo along with several others as an official sport of the 1904 Olympic program.^[6]

Medal summary

Gold	Silver	Bronze
United States (USA) New York Athletic Club David Bratton George Van Cleaf Leo Goodwin Louis Handley David Hesser Joe Ruddy James Steen	United States (USA) Chicago Athletic Association Rex Beach Jerome Steever Edwin Swatek Charles Healy Frank Kehoe David Hammond Bill Tuttle	United States (USA) Missouri Athletic Club John Meyers Manfred Toeppen Gwynne Evans Amedee Reyburn Frank Schreiner Augustus Goessling Bill Orthwein

References

^ ^a ^b "HistoFINA – Water polo medalists and statistics" (PDF). fina.org. FINA. September 2019. p. 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
^ ^a ^b "Water Polo at the 1904 Summer Olympics". olympedia.org. Olympedia. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
^ "Water Polo at the 1904 St. Louis Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
^ "David Bratton". Olympedia.com. Retrieved 2024-09-02.
^ "George Van Cleaf". Olympedia.com. Retrieved 2024-09-02.
^ "St. Louis 1904 Water Polo Men Results". IOC. Retrieved 31 January 2022.