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The water polo tournament at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will contested entirely in Barra Olympic Park, the main venue cluster, after organisers confirmed that the preliminary matches would take place in the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre. The knockout phases had already been confirmed to take place in the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in the second week of the Games, after the swimming competition (6-13 August) has finished.

The preliminary water polo matches will be played between 6 and 14 August, with the knockout stages starting with the quater-finals on 15 August and ending with the men's medal matches on 20 August.

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With diving (7-20 August) and synchronised swimming (14-19 August) also taking place in the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre, four of the five aquatics disciplines will be held in Barra Olympic Park (marathon swimming is at Copacabana beach). 

“With three sports at the Maria Lenk, we are optimising our financial, planning and operational resources in one place, in addition to offering the spectator a better experience, with a concentration of the aquatic sports,” said Rio 2016 excutive sport director Agberto Guimarães.

The water polo preliminary matches were orginally scheduled for the Julio De Lamare Aquatics Centre, next to the Maracanã Stadium, but it was decided to relocate them after a review of the Games projects with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last May. After considering the Deodoro Aquatics Centre, which will host the swimming section of modern pentathlon, Rio 2016 and International Swimming Federation (FINA) agreed at the end of 2015 that the Maria Lenk was the best option. 

This is the pool that will host the early stages of the Rio 2016 Olympic water polo tournament (Photo: Getty Images/Buda Mendes)