| Event: | Men's water polo |
| Games: | 1912 Summer |
| Venue: | Djurgårdsbrunnsviken |
| Dates: | 7–16 July |
| Competitors: | 46 |
| Nations: | 6 |
| Longnames: | yes |
| Gold: | Great Britain men's national water polo team |
| Goldnoc: | GBR |
| Silver: | Sweden men's national water polo team |
| Silvernoc: | SWE |
| Bronze: | Belgium men's national water polo team |
| Bronzenoc: | BEL |
| Prev: | 1908 |
| Next: | 1920 |
The 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm saw the fourth water polo tournament at Olympics.[1] All games took place in the newly built swimming stadium in Djurgårdsbrunnsviken from 7 to 16 July 1912. All medals were decided by using the Bergvall system.[2]
The competitions in water polo were arranged on the Cup Tie (elimination) system, but in such a way that the necessary number of matches had to be played for the second and third prizes between the teams qualified to take part in these rounds. The principle was adopted that a team which had not been beaten, direct or indirect, by a team that was qualified to fight for the second or third prize, should have the right to play against the team last-mentioned, even if it (the first-named) had already been beaten by some other team. The teams entered were drawn in pairs for the first round, after which the order in which they were to meet in the second round was determined by drawing lots, so that the order in which the games were to be played, right up to the final, was fixed before the games began.
A total of 45 water polo players from 6 nations competed at the Stockholm Games:
| First Round | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 July | 7 | align=center | - | 5 | after extra time | ||||||||||
| Hill (2), Wilkinson (2), Radmilovic (2), Bentham | (2 | align=center | - | 3) | Grégoire (2), Meyboom (2), Nijs | ||||||||||
| 8 July | 7 | align=center | - | 2 | |||||||||||
| R. Andersson (3), Bergqvist (3), ? | (4 | align=center | - | 0) | Decoin, Provost | ||||||||||
| 9 July | 5 | align=center | - | 4 | |||||||||||
| Scheff, ? | (1 | align=center | - | 2) | Fazekas, Hégner, Rémi, ? | ||||||||||
| Second Round | |||||||||||||||
| 11 July | 6 | align=center | - | 3 | |||||||||||
| Wilkinson (3), Hill, Radmilovic, Bentham | (3 | align=center | - | 0) | R. Andersson (2), V. Andersson | ||||||||||
| Gold medal match | |||||||||||||||
| 13 July | 8 | align=center | - | 0 | |||||||||||
| ? | (4 | align=center | - | 0) | |||||||||||
Tournament to Silver | |||||||||||||||
| First Round | |||||||||||||||
| 10 July | 6 | align=center | - | 5 | |||||||||||
| ? | (2 | align=center | - | 3) | Fazekas (3), Rémi, ? | ||||||||||
| 11 July | 4 | align=center | - | 1 | |||||||||||
| ? | (2 | align=center | - | 1) | ? | ||||||||||
| Second Round | |||||||||||||||
| 14 July | 8 | align=center | - | 1 | |||||||||||
| R. Andersson (3), Bergqvist (3), V. Andersson (2) | (5 | align=center | - | 1) | Scheff | ||||||||||
| 15 July | 5 | align=center | - | 4 | |||||||||||
| ? | (2 | align=center | - | 1) | Scheff, ? | ||||||||||
| Silver and Bronze medal match | |||||||||||||||
| 16 July | 4 | align=center | - | 2 | |||||||||||
| Bergqvist (2), V. Andersson, R. Andersson | (4 | align=center | - | 0) | ? | ||||||||||
| Place | Nation | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | Rudolf Buchfelder Richard Manuel Walter Schachlitz Otto Scheff Josef Wagner Ernst Kovács Hermann Buchfelder | |
| 5 | Sándor Ádám László Beleznai Tibor Fazekas Jenő Hégner Károly Rémi János Wenk Imre Zachár | |
| 6 | Gustave Prouvost Gaston Van Laere Georges Rigal Paul Beulque Jean Thorailler Henri Decoin Paul Vasseur Jean Rodier |