Gold/Silver For BC Water Polo Players

A sport that seldom gets “tons” of coverage is Water Polo and along with others I imagine that not many have it in their travel plans to have planned a trip to Medellin Colombia let alone individuals who even know where it’s located.

Canada’s National Water Polo team ventured in a  trip of a “life-time” for the Men’s Youth team who shocked many  at the PanAm Aquatics Championships May 13-25 managing to win Gold while the Women team took home Silver. 

Canada’s National team pair of two U17 with athletes in Surrey, Langley, Delta, Maple Ridge as well as Abbotsford.

We have covered Water Polo in Delta at the Sungod Pool in North Delta with then Delta Cable, now Eastlink TV which was a first for us that saw the National team mention that this was their best overall finish at this competition at this age group, plus their first championship title for the Men’s youth team. 

Past performances were placing third at the 2013, 2015 and 2017 event that saw lower mainland Water Polo players on Canada’s Men’s U17 team include Langley’s Joshua Coxford, Surrey’s Jackson Culbreath, Elliott Griffoen, Elliott King, Langley’s Nash Porter and Delta’s Adam Rashed.

Maple Ridge’s Airi Cowie and Abbotoford’s Alexandra Stoddard were on the Silver medal-winning women’s team.

The men’s youth team began their round-robin tournament with a 32-4 win against Venezuela, followed by a loss against Brazil (11-6) and went on to win the five following games I

In quarterfinals, 

Canada went on to defeat Argentina by a  commanding score of 23-4 then defeated the U.S. team by a score of 17-11.

The final match saw Canada pull off a 11-10 win over Brazil noting that Canada’s team was led by Langley’s Coxford and Mississauga’s Ivan Khramtsov, who each managed three goals. 

Langley’s Porter was named Most Valuable Player for the final game while Khramtsov was named MVP for the Men’s tournament. 

Khramtsov mentioned in the media scrum following the match “This group has come a long way since last year’s U16 Worlds, where we got our first real taste of international water polo,” 

He continued “This time, we came with experience, hunger, and a belief in each other. Our week of preparation before the tournament set the foundation, and every player stepped up when it counted.”

Canada’s Women kick started the event with three wins that saw them drop the final by a 18-7 score to the U.S.

Eleven (11) water polo teams competed in the Men’s tournament while seven (7) competed in the Women’s division, at the 2025 PanAm Aquatics Championships. 

Interesting to note that this is the first edition of a multisport event that also included diving, swimming, high diving and synchronized swimming.