Charlize Andrews

Triple water polo Olympian Bronwen Knox spotted the potential of young water polo utility Charlize Andrews as a teenager.

Charlize, who went to St Paul’s School in Brisbane’s north, just as Knox did, burst into the Queensland Thunder team in the Australian Water Polo League in 2020.

“She is an amazing up-and-coming athlete who has such raw ability to just feel the game,” Knox said at the time. “That is something you can’t teach.

“Now we are just trying to reinforce the skills and how to bring her up to that next level.

“But naturally she just puts herself in really good scoring positions and you can’t teach people that.

“You can harness that, but you can’t teach them that. She is going to be one to watch in the future. She will have a great career.’’

Charlize, who started playing water polo when she followed her older brother into the sport, represented Australia in several junior teams. She was named MVP at both the Youth World Championships and Junior World Championships as she made her way through the ranks.

Charlize made her senior national debut with the Stingers at the 2022 FINA World League Intercontinental Cup in Peru. That year, she was in the team at the World Championships in Budapest, where Australia finished sixth.

She was among Australia’s scorers at the 2023 World Aquatic Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, where the Stingers finished fourth. After a tight 12-10 loss to Spain in the semi-finals, the Stingers lost the third-place play-off to Italy 16-14.

At the 2024 World Championships in Doha, Australia finished sixth, beating Britain 20-8 in the round of 16 before going down by a point to the USA in the quarter-finals.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Charlize and the Stingers became the most successful Australian water polo team ever at an overseas Olympic Games.

Their silver medal performance was close to being gold, going down 11-9 to world number one Spain in the gold medal match.

They got there with an undefeated run in the group matches against the Netherlands, Hungary, China and Canada with two of those wins coming via penalty shootout. They took out Greece in the quarter-finals and world powerhouse the USA in the semis in another penalty shootout.