Nathan Power

Newcastle-born Nathan Power, captain of the Australian men’s water polo team, is not shy of international experience, having begun playing professionally in the Croatian league with Jadran Split Club in 2016.

“I still remember back in 2013 we had a World Championships there, my first one for Australia actually, and at the time I thought that would be a great place to live in,” Nathan said.

Europe has been Nathan’s second home, later swapping Croatia for Spain in 2020 when he signed for CN Barcelona.

“Changing scenery and changing culture is something that goes along with the challenge of playing at a new club.”

Rising to the Sharks challenge has blended well with Nathan too. A 200cm centre-back, he’s made more than 200 appearances for Australia since his Sharks debut in 2013.

Tokyo held a special place for Nathan as he was picked for the Rio 2016 squad but had to withdraw due to injury.

Nathan has applied the same diligence and patience in his academic goals as he has with his Olympic dream.

Wanting to do a Bachelor of Economics at UNSW, he was initially unable to gain a place but enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts having to complete the necessary units – part-time due to water polo – before being allowed to transfer to Economics. Nathan graduated in 2020.

“I was never fazed by the fact that my study was going to be for an extra few years,” he said. “Part-time study meant I was never overloaded with work on top of my athletic commitments, and I was able to always feel confident and focused on the coursework I had in any given term.”

Nathan realised his Olympic dream when he made his debut at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games. Victories against Croatia and Kazakhstan earned Australia a 2-3 record in the group stage of the tournament, which was not enough for the Sharks to advance to the knockout rounds.

The Sharks reached the quarter-finals at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest and at the 2023 titles in Fukuoka, Japan, they finished 10th, after a tough loss to London Olympic gold medallists Croatia in their final play-off game.

Australia started strong, managing to stay within two goals of the Croatians at half time, with Nathan playing a key role in a strong defensive effort.

In the third quarter, the Croatians came out firing, taking a 8-14 lead into the last quarter and hanging on to defeat Australia.

At the 2024 World Championships, contested in February in Doha, the Nathan Power and Blake Edwards led Sharks finished 11th.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Nathan and the Sharks recorded statement wins over defending Olympic champion Serbia, host nation France and Hungary in the group stage.

Finishing second in their group, it gave Australia a place in the men's Olympic quarter-finals for the first time since London 2012.

A penalty-shootout loss to the USA in the quarter-finals sent the Sharks into the 5th-8th classification games and they came away in 8th place, up from the team's 9th overall placing at Tokyo 2020.