Underwater Rugby

 The beautiful new Aquanation Aquatic Centre...

 ... with all the diving platforms. Here is where the game took place, in the 5 metre diving pool.

Lucy, in red, and her team mates getting ready to play.

They took a team photo after, so I took one too.

 A couple of photos from the website.

Wednesday, May 4th.
When I met Lucy we spent a long time talking about her sports. I couldn't imagine how they were played and had a lot of questions about it, not the least of which was how can you be a spectator at a game. She told me that you had to put your bathers on. Lucy invited me to her next game. Who could resist? So I packed my bathers and drove to the beautiful Aquanation swimming facility. There was an Olympic sized pool and with a diving centre attached. I was introduced to a lot of the players who were from Columbia, China, Turkey and Australia who were happy to tell me about their sport. Some of the them play either underwater hockey or underwater rugby at the international level and had just competed in the Underwater Hockey World Championships in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Lucy had brought her underwater camera so that I could record some of the action. 

So I watched and learned how they play the game. They play in teams wearing masks, snorkels and flippers in a five metre deep pool. They have to swim up and down five metres to play at the bottom or get air. They play with a large rubber ball filled with saltwater, so that it sinks, but not like a stone. I marveled at the fitness of these people, how long they could hold their breath, how well they swam underwater while they were wrestling each other for the ball and trying to score a goal in the sunken basket at the opponents end of the pool. Meanwhile, I was wrestling with a leaky mask and a snorkel that kept submerging and trying to drown me as I recorded the game. Lucy has invited me to watch a hockey game wherever I want. The sports get little recognition because they are very difficult to watch or broadcast. Since I have no pictures of the game underwater, here are a couple of links if anyone is as interested as I was:
Underwater Rugby Math on YouTube
About UWR - Swim to Columbia