Cheers of Ole Ole and Ria-Ria-Hungaria rang around the picturesque Alfred Hajos swimming pool complex in Budapest on Tuesday evening when Hungary's waterpolo team beat Australia to top the warm-up tournament before London Olympics.

The old stadium by the river Danube is one of the great venues in world waterpolo and was a fitting location for Hungary's send-off to London in search of a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in men's waterpolo, a feat no country has ever achieved in the history of the sport.

With nine Olympic golds and 15 medals in all, far more than any other country, Hungary are the aristocrats of waterpolo. The team is reknowned for its attacking verve and virtuoso technique while its top players are regularly decorated with honors.

In 2010, all-rounder Tamas Kasas was voted world player of the decade by members of FINA (the International Swimming Federation). His teammate Peter Biros came second, and along with Gergely Kiss and goalkeeper Zoltan Szecsi, these four make up a unique quartet of players with three gold medals to their name. Now in their mid-thirties, all four are close to unprecedented Olympic glory.

Kiss got the biggest cheer of the evening when he was given the player of the tournament award after the game against Australia. The two-meter tall left-hander's trademark is spectacular goals from the right wing. His finest moment came in the 2004 Olympic final against Serbia and Montenegro when he was the main force behind Hungary's dramatic comeback and 8-7 victory.

"We are going to London to win," he said after the game. "There are four or five teams which can win gold, and one of them is Hungary. We just have to be ready from the off and put all the history behind us."

Kiss was referring not just to their impeccable Olympic history since 2000 but also their less illustrious record in non-Olympic tournaments. Since Sydney, Hungary have won just a single World Championship (2003) and no European Championship. Some fans fear that the run of big-game defeats in semi-finals and finals to their fiercest rivals Croatia, Italy, and particularly Serbia, has eroded the team's traditional confidence.

As the key players have aged, concerns have also grown that after Sydney, Athens, and Beijing, this may be one Games too many for this golden generation. Most recently Hungary were beaten by both Croatia and emerging force Montenegro in a warm-up tournament in Ireland in early July, while on Monday they lost to Italy in the Budapest meet. As the 36 year-old Kasas points out, however, they have defied lowered expectations before.

"People didn't really think we would win in Beijing but we did. I'm optimistic we'll be OK in London," he said.

Hungary will start their Olympic quest on July 29 against old rivals Serbia. Also in their six-team qualifying group are the US and Montenegro, both teams tipped as medal prospects. While Hungary beat the US 14-10 in the Beijing final after the Americans shocked hot favorites Serbia in the semi-final, the US have been improving and beat Hungary 12-9 in an Olympic warm-up in California in May.

"It's a very difficult group," admitted Kasas, "but we expect to reach the semi-finals, and after that anything is possible."

The more confident local fans are reassured by Hungary's mastery of the art of peaking for the Olympics, the most coveted title of all in waterpolo. After the Australia game, throngs of excited kids and parents clamoured around their heroes for autographs and photographs, expectant that they will once more rise to the occasion in London.

"This will definitely be the hardest Olympics to win," Kasas warned. "It's true that we have our ups and downs and that our concentration levels must be ready from the first game to eliminate that inconsistency."

Kiss is confident the team's shape is coming together at the right time but emphasizes the need to avoid conceding soft goals. "We have 11 days now to put the finishing touches on our preparations," he said. "We will work in that time on making our defense as stable as our attack is productive, and most importantly on maximizing our concentration."

The players' trust in coach Denes Kemeny to fix such problems is total. After all, no waterpolo coach knows more than him about how to win an Olympic gold. The game against Australia was the 58 year-old's 400th in charge of the national team since he took over in 1997. Smiling modestly, Kemeny took a bow before the game to mark the occasion.

After 15 years in charge of the national team his ambition seems unquenched. During the game he paced up and down the poolside furiously gesturing at his men after defensive lapses or missed shots, always on the lookout for things to be tweaked and improved on.

"We were missing a little bit of ruthlessness in front of goal tonight," Kemeny told the scrum of TV cameras afterwards. "We need a little time to work on that, but I think the time we have left before London is enough."

Hungary may not be unbeatable in men's waterpolo but their rivals for Olympic gold would be unwise to write them off just yet.