IMAGINE a cross between handball and basketball played in a swimming pool, and players are not allowed to stop swimming – that is waterpolo.

Originally developed in England in the late 19th century as a sort of aquatic rugby, it was played casually in lakes and rivers.

The men’s game has been in every Olympic Games since 1900, but it was 100 years before the women’s game was included.

No one knows it better than City of Oxford Waterpolo club coach, Michaela Smith, 39, a former team GB player.

A swimmer since the age of five, she took up waterpolo aged 17 at a competitive club in Sussex, after getting bored with swimming lengths.

“I realised there was more to life,” she says.

“Swimmers who get bored with swimming have a go and fall in love with it, it is such a nice game to play.”

Although it may be nice, it is also gruelling.

Each game starts with a race to the ball at the centre of the pitch, and each team has just 30 seconds to score in the two-metre wide goal before the ball is returned to the opposition.

You can only throw with one hand, except for the goalkeeper, and players are not allowed to touch the floor, so the game is played in four quarters of eight minutes each to allow players recovery time. With 13 people on a team, seven take to the pool at a time, with six substitutes ready to dive in.

Ms Smith added: “You are constantly swimming – you attack one person, they throw the ball then you immediately have to attack the next.

“And there is always someone pushing or pulling you. I absolutely love it.”

Ms Smith, who now lives in Old Marston, played for Great Britain for a few years, at a time when the team was ranked eighth in the world.

City of Oxford Waterpolo welcomes anyone over 16. The only pre-requisite is that they are comfortable swimmers.

Ms Smith, who now works in sports development, said the club has seen a slight rise in people joining since the Olympic, although Team GB failed to win any medals in waterpolo.

See oxfordwaterpolo.co.uk