Paris | Australia’s women’s water polo team, the Stingers, have already slain a few giants at the Paris Games. But on Thursday (Friday AEST) their hopes of a medal were right on the line: they were about to face the reigning Olympic triple-champions, Team USA, in a semi-final.

The weight of history was on their shoulders. These were the same two teams that contested the final in the Sydney Games of 2000 (the very first Olympics at which women’s water polo had been played). Australia won gold that day – a match that now, as one of the current crop of Stingers put it, “lives rent-free in our heads”.