INTRODUCTION Throwing performance represents one of the most important performance requirements in elite water polo. The subject of this game analysis was the throwing behavior of the world class players under competition match conditions during the final "World Cup Water Polo" tournament 2018 in Berlin - as well as any differnces to the competition-specific throwing behavior (throwing situation, position, target, speed, as well as precision) of the top European nations Croatia, Serbia, and Hungary. METHODS For biomechanical analysis of the goal shot velocities on the individual level in each match player and ball positions were recorded by two high-speed cameras (PHOTRON Fastcam mini AX50 and Fastcam SA-3) positioned under the ceiling (top-view above the goals) with a high temporal (250 fps) as well as spatial resolution (1024x1024 pixels). Both sides of the field were calibrated on the water surface (2D direct linear transformation). Only the successful goals were analyzed with an endless loop mode and an end-trigger. The ball positions were tracked framewise using WinAnalyze 2.8. All further analysis were calculated in MATLAB 2018a. RESULTS Both penalty throw (from the 6 m line) and throw from the field showed very high release speeds (partly higher than 25 ms-1). Thereby, the top performers were Dusan Mandic from the 2016 and 2020 Olympic champion Serbia with faster than 27 ms-1 and Gergö Zalanki from Hungary with faster than 26 ms-1. At these shot speeds, the reaction time of the goalkeeper (time between leaving the ball from the hand and passing goalkeeper`s position) was less than 0.2 s in individual cases. Hungary`s national team occupied a special position among the world`s top water polo teams in terms of shot velocity, because, on the one hand, its average superiority over four of seven World Cup finalists was significant, and, on the other hand, no less than five players achieved shot velocities higher than 23 ms-1. DISCUSSION Throwing speed is probably one of the most important performance prerequisites in water polo at all performance levels. This increase of the throwing speed in the course of the last 15 years by about 9% may be regarded as an obvious concomitant of the professionalization of the water polo sport especially in the nations of the Mediterranean area. This considerable increase in speed is also underlined by the fact that the throwing speeds measured by Elliott et al. (1988) in the 1980s are now already achieved by 15-18-year-old Croatian junior national players with 19.91 ms-1 (±0.91 ms-1; Uljevic, Esco & Sekulic, 2014). In general, it should also be noted that goal throws under competitive match conditions have a ball velocity up to 3 ms-1 (p < 0.05) higher than drive shots throws performed on the empty goal under laboratory conditions.
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