The 1996 water polo tournament was held at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, which was also the site of swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, and the swimming section of the modern pentathlon.
The format was similar to 1988 and 1992, but with a slight change. There were 12 teams entered with two preliminary round-robin pools of six teams each. But in 1996 the top four teams in each pool advanced to an eight-team single-elimination medal tournament, with quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals. The last two teams in the preliminary pools contested a classification round-robin for places 9-12. The losing quarter-finalists contested a single-elimination tournament for places 5-8.
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