Published On: 11 July 2008


Western Australia has continued its impressive contribution to Australia’s men’s water polo Olympic history by securing three players in the 2008 Australian Olympic Team while Shawn Redhage has also been selected for men’s basketball.

 

Jamie Beadsworth, Tim Neesham and James Stanton were all today officially named as members of the Men’s Water Polo Section for the 2008 Olympic Games following in the footsteps of WA’s Olympic water polo greats three time OlympiansTom Hoad and David Neesham. The Western Australian Institute of Sport trio will form part of the 13-man squad that kicks off their Olympic campaign against Greece on August 10.

 

Perth Wildcat Redhage was also named in the 12-man Basketball Section, joining international star Andrew Bogut in the Boomers team for Beijing.

 

Thewater polo triowill be hoping to achieve something in Beijing their illustrious WA counterparts never managed and bring homeAustralia’s firstmedal in men’s water polo. After finishing third at the last two World Leagues coach John Fox is expecting his team to mix it with the best.

 

“We’ve had good results and the most pleasing thing is the consistent performances against the higher ranked teams. We’re going in ranked 10 in the world and basically the expectation is for us to not only be competitive but we know that we can mix it with the best teams,” hesaid.

 

26-year old Redhage and 23-year old Beadsworth are the two Olympic debutants out of the today’s four selections, with 24-year old Stanton having donned the green and gold in Athens and 28-year old Neesham having competed at both the Sydney and Athens Games. Beadsworth will also join his sister in Beijing, joining hockey players Kiel Brown and Hope Munro as the State’s first brother/sister combination to be selected for the same Olympics.

 

Full biographies of the men’s water polo and basketball athletes are available on the AOC’s official website – http://www.olympics.com.au/Athletes/TheTeam/tabid/343/Default.aspx?TeamID=3&SportID=1&DisciplineID=19#teamTableContainer . A full listing of all official WA selections, which now stand at 41, is also available at www.olympics.com.au/wa .