Georgia in water polo Olympic qualifiers knockout after win over Brazil

Georgia will be among teams entering the knockout round of the qualifiers for the water polo competition at the Summer Olympics after defeating Brazil on Wednesday.

The Georgian team won its second game in Group A by scoring a 12:8 win over the Brazilians to get level on points with the second-placed Greece, who lost to group leaders Montenegro.

The first three quarters of the match ended in favour of the Georgian squad with respective scores of 3:1, 3:1 and 2:1. Their opponents came back to win the final segment 5:4, however they could not surmount the five-goal disadvantage to turn the fixture.

Led by coach Dejan Stanojević and involving Man of the Match Nika Shushiashvili, the Georgian team will now play Montenegro on Thursday. Even though their advancement to the knockout stage is guaranteed, Shushiashvili said he and his teammates would only seek victory over group favourites.

The top four teams from groups A and B will proceed to a three-round knockout stage that will determine three national squads that will qualify for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.