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By Sarah Young
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) - Britain's water polo women are ready to bring the sport back to its birthplace following a journey of sacrifice, funding cuts and fortnightly trips to Hungary to play in a professional league.
"We've worked for such a long time. It's all about what happens when we get in that water. We know what we want to do, we want to play well," Fran Leighton, captain for the last eight years, told Reuters.
Britain hosted Australia, Hungary and the United States in a test event at the Olympic venue which gave water polo exposure in Britain like it has never had before, and stirred up public excitement about it ahead of the Games proper.
Despite losing all four of their matches, the British team had much to be encouraged by with some rousing performances against the world's best including a narrow 7-6 defeat to the United States.
For 30-year-old Leighton, the current wave of excitement is one she has been riding since 2005 when London was awarded the Games but there have been tough choices along the way.
"As soon as when we won the bid, there were decisions about what do you want do with your life? Do you want to go and work or do you want to do your training?," she said, speaking against the backdrop of 5,000 brand new seats peering over the brightly lit pool.
"Quite a lot of my fiends have houses, proper jobs, kids, and I'm fine without any of that. I decided to make the decision back then that I wanted to try and get to the Olympics."
Leighton works as a swimming teacher in Manchester, where the women's squad is based, and says around half the team have jobs or are studying. Britain, unlike Greece, Hungary and Italy, does not have a professional women's or men's league.
In 2009 the sport received a blow when funding injected to prepare for the Olympics was slashed, but a year later it was buoyed when it received a slight raise.
Leighton shrugs off the impact of the cuts.
"When you come from a sport that's never been funded before, it was brilliant when we got funded. When it was taken away, we were like we still want to do it, it doesn't really change anything, it just means you have to make bigger decisions like do you have to pick up another job."
COMPETITIVE
The sport, played in a pool with football-style goals and often likened to a version of rugby because of its roughness, was developed in Britain in the nineteenth century but the men's team has floundered since a four gold medal haul in the early part of the 20th century, while the women's game only became an Olympic sport in 2000.
The British women's qualification was a result of its host nation position, but Leighton is confident the team has done enough to ensure it will be more than competitive come July.
"The Olympic champions (the Netherlands) got knocked out last week and the world champions, Greece, aren't coming to the Olympics, that's a big shock. With the women's games it is one of these where you could come first or last," Leighton said.
"I think for us to come top six would be a massive success."
Their coach, Hungarian Szilveszter Fekete, agreed that the women's game is fluid and said the British team had benefited from its participation in the Hungarian national league last year.
"Women's water polo is very, very equal," Fekete said, while warning that the United States and Australia, who won silver and bronze respectively at the Beijing Olympics, would be tough.
"Physically they are bigger, stronger, and they know everything," he said.
As she gazes out at the stadium seats crowding over Britain's only water polo-specific venue, a giant sloping shoe box-like structure which is temporary, the talk of bigger, stronger opponents does not scare Leighton.
"It's just about ... enjoying the pool, getting used to it and getting used to, hopefully, having the British crowd behind us," she said. (Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Ossian Shine)