The World Games I women's water polo competition was held on July 25–27, 1981, at Santa Clara International Swim Center in Santa Clara, California. Teams from the United States (2), Netherlands and Canada participated.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Six days before the first game, Canada had become the newly-crowned World Cup champion in Brisbane, Australia, in a competition that included the same three teams that medaled in these Games.[11][12]
| Gold | Silver | Bronze |
 NetherlandsJ. Boer Brinkhof Dorine Heijnert Kok Ria Roos Ingrid Scholten Elly Spijker Ann van Beek Leineke van den Heuvel Marion van den Mark Greet van den Veen others . |
 United States ILynn Comer Laura Cox Ruth Cox Debbie Decker Leslie Entwistle Karen Hastie Vaune Kadlubek Simone LaPay Robin Linn Sue McIntyre Maureen O'Toole Marla Smith other |
 CanadaSylvie Archambault Tracy Crandall Odile Delaserra Isabel Deschamps Michele Despatis Jocelyn Dumais Diedre Finshaw Johanne Gervais Janice Gilbey Heather Gifford Hilary Knowles Denise Prefontaine Sylvie Thibault |
| Team | W | L | GF | GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands
|
3 | 0 | 52 | 17 |
| United States I
|
2 | 1 | 30 | 23 |
| Canada
|
1 | 2 | 24 | 29 |
| United States II
|
0 | 3 | 10 | 47 |
Saturday, July 25, 1981:
Sunday, July 26, 1981:
Monday, July 27, 1981:
Other known individual participants: USA – Marybeth Rozance