Three West Aussies in Stingers’ Provisional World Champs Team

Three Western Australian water polo athletes have been named in the Stingers’ provisional FINA World Championship squad ahead of the titles beginning in Budapest on July 14.

Olympian Zoe Arancini headlines the local trio and is joined in the long team by potential World Championship debutants Lilian Hedges and Jessica Zimmerman in the 15-strong squad.

The final 13-member team to contest the Championships will be announced by Water Polo Australia next week.

The Australian team will enter competition under the guidance of newly appointed head coach Sakis Kechagias with the former Greek national team mentor referring to this year’s titles as the first steps in the long path to the Tokyo Olympic Games.

“This is the start of our Olympic cycle with our goal to work towards the Tokyo Games,” he said.

“We wanted to have a team at the World Championships this year but we wanted to also provide players who have work and university the opportunity to commit to those obligations as well. That means our preparation has been slightly harder leading into this Tournament.

“Some of our young players don’t have a lot of international experience but the World Championships will contribute to that.”

Kechagias said the recent World League campaign had given Australia feedback on where it is currently at, but said the job of developing Australia’s team for 2020 begins in Hungary.

“The World League Finals (earlier in June) showed us where we are in the world and now we need to focus on taking those steps towards the next Olympic Games.I do believe here in Australia we have the talent and we will be working hard to develop a competitive team,” said Kechagias.

Australia will begin its campaign on July 16 with a Group D match against Kazakhstan, before facing Russia (July 18) and Greece (July 20) to complete the preliminary stage.