HOW FAR DOES A WATER POLO PLAYER REALLY SWIM IN A GAME?
A water polo game lasts on average somewhere between one hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes in length (perhaps the shortest game time of any team-sport) depending on the number of stoppages during the game, level of play by different ages and sexes, the number of time-outs called by coaches, length of each game, and whether the game goes into overtime or not. For purposes of this discussion and for ease in calculating times of certain activities, we will choose an average number of 60 minutes per game, which is a number that covers all levels of water polo. Film analysis of a complete game show that the total linear distance traveled by an active player who plays most of the game, in a 30-meter course and 8-minute quarters, ranges from a distance of 1500 meters (about a mile) and up to a maximum of 1800 meters. Distances swum in a smaller pool (25 meters) and with shorter quarters are probably somewhere around 1200 meters average distance. For our purposes we will choose 1600 meters as the
