Birmingham’s Rosie Morris admits the GB women’s water polo team will be playing for more than medals at London 2012.
The GB goalkeeper accepts that the immediate future of Szilveszter Fekete’s squad is also dependent on their success at this summer’s Olympics.
The UK Sport financial backing, that for the last six years has allowed GB to operate a fully professional team based in Manchester, will be reviewed soon after the Games.
And the 26-year-old from Moseley knows they have to try to break into the top six in London otherwise a group that has come a long way in a relatively short time could break up.
“A lot of our funding depends on how we get on,” Morris said. “The funding for the next few years will get announced in December and it will basically be based on how we do in the summer. There’s quite a lot of pressure riding on it because it’s the first time we have ever had a women’s team in the Olympics.
“The men’s team are a bit further down the line in their development but their funding was cut off a bit a couple of years ago so they all had to go and play for clubs abroad which has advantages and disadvantages.”
Whatever happens many of Fekete’s players will look to play professionally in countries like Hungary, Greece and Spain before they reconvene for Rio 2016.
But performing under pressure is not an unfamiliar feeling for Morris and her team-mates who, ever since it was announced the games will be held in London, have had to hit a never-ending sequence of targets.
The last of those was to reach the European Championships in Eindhoven in January, which they did for the first time in 15 years. Victory over Germany saw them finish seventh but this summer’s opposition will be even more daunting.
