1912 Olympic Games Official Report Part 2

Zimmerman and Potts lay side by side for a long time, but both ofthem lost a great deal by their last effort (Pike dive with backwardspring, turning inwards and 1 1 / 2 somersault). The first three placesfell to representatives of Germany, and the first of the “not placed”men was also a German, Zürner. This gave the nation in questiona very good start in regard to points for the final placing of thecompeting nations, and one that it managed to retain pretty safelythroughout the whole of the Swimming Competitions.Water Polo.The competitions in Water Polo were arranged on the Cup Tie(elimination) system, but in such a way that the necessary number ofmatches had to be played for the second and third prizes betweenthe teams qualified to take part in these rounds. The principle wasadopted, that a team which had not been beaten, direct or indirect, bya team that was qualified to fight for the second or third prize, shouldhave the right to play against the team last-mentioned, even if it (thefirst-named) had already been beaten by some other team. The teamsentered were drawn in pairs for the first round, after which the orderin which they were to meet in the second round was determined bydrawing lots, so that the order in which the games were to beplayed, right up to the final, was fixed before the games began. Thedrawing of lots took place within two groups or pools, within whichthe elimination took place, so that a team from each group met inthe final. In order to save time, and in order that the award of thesecond and third prizes should be made with perfect fairness, therounds qualifying for these prizes were fought out after the ordinaryones, the principle being applied, however, that a team which defeatedanother was thereby considered to have beaten all the teams previouslyconquered by the second team.As 6 teams had been entered for the competition, the order ofplay, as decided by the drawing of lots, was as follows:1:st Round: 2:nd Round: Final:a) Great Britain WinnerBelgium (Great Britain) Winnerb) Sweden Winner (Great Britain)France (Sweden)c) AustriaHungaryWinner(Austria)In the first round, therefore, there were three matches; in the second,only one, the winner of match c) playing in the final. As Great Britainand Austria were the victors in matches a) and c) respectively, Belgiumand Hungary met in match d), and, Belgium winning this match, thelatter country and France met in match f), France having been beatenin match b) by Sweden. As, again, Sweden had been beaten byGreat Britain in the semi-final, and Austria had been beaten by741