An exciting FINA Women’s Water Polo World League Super Final tournament of 2008 concluded on June 15 with a close victory for team Russia, giving it its first ever World League Super Final title in five editions of this competition. They secured this triumph with a win in the gold-medal match over the 2007 defending champions team USA, by a score of 8-7. Both sides struggled for the lead until the bitter end of the match, and their determination provided for an extremely exciting final minute that was resolved by a point from Natalia Shepelina (RUS) with just 13 seconds left on the clock, making the score definitively in favour of Russia.
The game for the bronze medal was played between team Australia, which was the silver-medallist from 2007, and team Canada. This game was just as close, but in the end Australia prevailed with a score of 7-6. Meanwhile, playing for 5th and 6th positions were the teams of Spain and China. This game resulted in a win for China of 7-5 over the home favourites, who attributed their loss to fatigue following their match the day before against the then-dominant USA.
The Final Classification of the event, therefore, is as follows:
1. Russia
2. USA
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. China
6. Spain
These teams will each take home a portion of US$165,000 in prize money reserved for the World League Super Final participants. The Most Valuable Player award of the World League Super Final went to Sofia Konuhk (RUS), while the Best Goalie Award (least goals scored against) of the World League Super Final was given to Elizabeth Armstrong (USA).
The teams of the World League Super Final was constituted by the best six teams from the World League Preliminary Rounds, which welcomed the participation of seven teams: Australia, China, Greece, Russia, Spain, Italy, Japan, as well as teams Canada and USA from Group Americas. The 2008 preliminary rounds were held in Tianjin (CHN) for Group Asia/Oceania from May 20-25, and in Siracusa (ITA) from May 23-25 and Athens (GRE) from May 30-June 1 for Group Europe.