2001 US National Championships
You are visitor
number
Counter courtesy of
Welcome to the Baltimore-Washington
Kayak Polo Club Web Page
The purpose of this page is to provide information to other kayakers in the Baltimore-Washington area interested in finding out more about the game and maybe coming along to play themselves.
Here you will find information about when and where we play, equipment used for kayak polo, links to other kayak polo sites in the US and some photographs of people playing polo.
The rules are not published here but are available through the US Canoe/Kayak polo committee website (accessible from our links page).
There's a whole blurb about polo on this page. Choose what you want to know about from the list below, the buttons to the left or the images to the right. There are more images on all the pages!
A game that has aspects of water polo, soccer and basketball, but which is played in kayaks.
The aim is the same as in all other sports that involve a goal and a ball - to score more goals than the other team. Just as in basketball and 5 a-side soccer, the teams consist of 5 players.
As in soccer there are goal keepers and corners, throws not kicks.As in basketball, teams can play a zone defence or mark opposing players one on one.
The ball is passed by hand just like basketball or water polo, more skilled players also use their paddles.
Kayak polo also has things it can call it's own, like the hand tackle. It is legal to push your opponent in as long as they are in sole control of the ball.
Anyone can! Polo can be played by anyone who has reasonable control of their kayak. You don't have to be able to roll to start playing. Playing polo is fun and helps beginning kayakers to relax and paddle better. It can be played at any level In our club we have all types of players and encourage everyone to play.
We play polo because it is fun but it is also about competition. The development of polo in the US and the competitiveness of US teams depends on the growth of polo at the grassroots level. We encourage other clubs to start playing and are willing to provide demonstrations, coaching and whatever else you need to established clubs or other groups in Mid Atlantic region.
Polo is a developing sport here in the US (despite the URL of this website). It started in Europe over 20 years ago and is now played in many different countries, including, France, Germany, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the UK, Japan, Taiwan, Nigeria, Canada and Brazil to name just a few. You could say it's a more popular sport than football! It's certainly played in more countries.
There have been several World Championships, the 4th having just been held in Brazil last summer. The US sent both mens and womens teams to the 3rd World Championships in Portugal but only managed to send a mens team to Brazil.
Despite this there has been great progress in the development of polo here in the last 3 years. Prior to that time there were a few groups of people playing some version of polo in a few different places. Now we have had two national championships and many more groups are playing throughout the country and most people are learning the rules! Much of this is thanks to the current chair of the USA Canoe/kayak polo committee, Brad Carr and the first coach of the USA national teams, Martin Bell (New Zealand, national team player and coach).
The Baltimore-Washington Kayak Polo Club has been playing polo in one form or another since the early nineties. Polo was started here by Dave and Nell Walton who used to own River and Sea Watersports in Beltsville. After Dave and Nell moved away from the area, polo continued and we've been playing ever since. We've competed in all the US National Championships held so far and plan to do so in the upcoming competition in April this year.
Membership of the club is open to anyone and we encourage other canoe and kayak clubs in Maryland and the surrounding states to start playing polo.
Problems with this site: johnhind1@yahoo.com
Under construction!
Click on the images for a large high resolution image and below the image for a quick loading version!
Each page has it's own images!
click here for faster loading image
click here for faster loading image
click here for faster loading image
click the image for a larger version
