Bea Ortiz stars as Spain beats Australia 11-9 for gold in women’s water polo at the Paris Olympics

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NANTERRE, France (AP) — When it got close in the fourth quarter, Bea Ortiz and Maica García Godoy delivered.

This time, it was a golden finish for Spain.

Ortiz scored four goals and Spain won its first Olympic gold medal in women’s water polo on Saturday, beating Australia 11-9 in the final at the Paris Games.

Maica García Godoy had three goals as Spain finished with a 7-0 record. Anni Espar Llaquet scored twice, and Martina Terre made 15 saves.

“We wanted the gold,” Espar Llaquet said. “We fought and we finally achieved that Olympic gold.”

It was a sweet moment for Espar Llaquet and Spain after they lost 14-5 to the United States in the final at the Tokyo Olympics. Spain also lost to the U.S. in the gold-medal match in London in 2012, but it finally finished on top in Paris.

“It’s a group of players with quality,” Spain coach Miguel Angel Oca Gaia said. “They are very, very, very good competitors, and they have worked really well to achieve this.”

Oca Gaia, who also won gold as a player for Spain in 1996, took off his shoes as the final seconds ticked off and the celebration started to ramp up. When his players swam over to pull him into the water, he held hands with his staff and jumped in instead.

Alice Williams scored five goals for Australia, which earned its first silver medal in women’s water polo. It won gold in 2000 and took home bronze in 2008 and 2012.

“We were undefeated until the gold-medal game. No one expected that but us,” Williams said. “We surprised the world and I think we should really be proud of ourselves for what we have done.”

Coach Bec Rippon played for Australia when it won bronze in Beijing. At the Paris Games, she became the first woman to serve as the head coach for a medal-winning team in the women’s water polo tournament at the Olympics.

“I take that as a real honor,” Rippon said. “And I just want to do it because I love it, and I want to do it the way I believe and stay true to that. And if that is inspiring to other people, then I’m happy with that.”

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Australia pulled within one when Sienna Hearn scored with 5:45 left. But Ortiz and García Godoy responded with power-play goals, and García Godoy helped close it out when she made it 11-7 with 1:49 remaining.

“I will never forget this,” Elena Ruiz Barril said. “I will have this engraved with fire (for) my whole life.”

The Netherlands won bronze when it beat the United States 11-10 on Sabrina van der Sloot’s last-second tiebreaking goal. The Dutch trailed 7-3 at halftime and 10-7 midway through the fourth quarter.

The Netherlands got the ball back following a U.S. turnover with 9 seconds left. Coach Eva Doudesis had goalkeeper Laura Aarts join the attack for a 7-on-6 opportunity, and Van der Sloot beat Ashleigh Johnson into the right side.

“I thought that they were going to attack me because I already scored five balls,” she said of the final sequence. “So yeah, I was like, ‘Well if you’re not going to attack me, I’m going to shoot it,’ and it was amazing that it went in.”

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It was the second women’s water polo medal for the Netherlands after it won gold at the 2008 Olympics. The United States had been the only country to medal in each tournament at the Olympics since it started in 2000.

“We’ve talked about just trying to learn from our mistakes and getting better,” U.S. captain Maggie Steffens said. “And I feel today we struggled to continually learn from our mistakes.”

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games