Hungarycrush S Korean women at World Water Polo

GWANGJU, South Korea: South Korea’s women suffered a record 64-0 defeat by Hungary in water polo as the hosts marked their world championship debut with an unwanted slice of history.

A rampant Hungary side buried the hapless Koreans in an avalanche of goals — 34 in the first half and 30 more after the break — in their Group B clash in Gwangju. The lop-sided result followed a horror outing for South Africa, who were battered 33-0 by the European champions the Netherlands a day earlier. New Zealand’s men previously held the honour of being the biggest world championships losers after being pulverised 38-1 by Croatia at the 1994 tournament in Rome. South Korea only rustled up a women’s team a month before the start of the competition, calling on former swimmers and with all but captain Oh Hee-ji still in their teens.

Their lack of experience told against the two-time world champion Hungarians as it took their beefier opponents just 12 seconds to take the lead on a penalty shot by Dorottya Szilagyi. After that it quickly became hard to follow the score as the goals poured in at a rate of roughly one every thirty seconds in the 32 minute match. “After the game, we told each other we’ll try to do better next time,” Song Ye-seo, who registered her country’s only effort on goal, told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. After being on the wrong end of a virtual cricket score, she added: “It was an honour to play a team that we’d only watched on YouTube — they were bigger and stronger than we thought.”