Latest news with #waterpolo
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Stingers' plan to back up their Olympic silver medal
The Australian women's water polo team are looking to continue their impressive Olympic form and land their first world championship medal in six years in Singapore next month. The Stingers claimed silver at the 2024 Paris Games, falling 11-9 to Spain in the final, and hope to springboard from that to a medal at the world aquatic championships, also featuring swimming and diving, which run from July 11-24. The Australian women haven't won a world championship medal since 2019 in South Korea, when they downed Hungary to win bronze. They just missed out in Fukuoka, Japan in 2023, losing the bronze medal play-off against Italy, while they placed sixth in 2024. Water Polo Australia on Monday named a world championship squad that features 10 players who were part of the Paris campaign, expecting the team to capitalise on that Olympic experience. Almost one year on, coach Bec Rippon said it was great to have the majority of the team back together, although veteran skipper Zoe Arancini was a notable omission. "It is nice having some of the Paris group back and to now see how they connect with the newer players that have been working hard in Australia and overseas," Rippon said. "They bring with them some great experience and energy, as we approach the new Olympic cycle," she said. Currently in camp on the Gold Coast for three weeks, the Stingers next head to Perth, where they will host the USA, who are reigning world champions, and Italy for a training camp and official Test matches. "It's going to be a great opportunity to trial some new things that we've been working on, and to try things without being under the same pressure of being at a world championships," Rippon said. "We will play the Italians at the world championships, so it will be a really good chance to check in and measure up against each other before Singapore." Stingers: Abby Andrews (QLD), Charlize Andrews (QLD), Hayley Ballesty (NSW), Tenealle Fasala (QLD), Sienna Green (NSW), Bronte Halligan (NSW), Sienna Hearn (NSW), Danijela Jackovich (NSW), Tilly Kearns (NSW), Alexie Lambert (NSW), Genevieve Longman (NSW), Olivia Mitchell (NSW), Gabi Palm (QLD), Pippa Pedley (WA), Alice Williams (QLD). Reserves: Claire Durston (NSW), Jessica Emerson (QLD), Nioka Thomas (NSW).
Forbes
6 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
LA 2028 Olympics: US Men's Water Polo Finally Year For Gold?
The US has sent a men's water polo team to the Olympic Games 24 times since 1904. They have never won a gold medal. In 1904 at the St. Louis games, water polo was an exhibition sport only–and Team USA did win gold. And silver and bronze. That's right, Team USA was first, second, and third because only US teams were entered. The gold team was the New York Athletic Club (NYAC), the silver team was the Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) and the bronze team was the Missouri Athletic Club (MAC). European countries since then have dominated Olympic water polo. Hungary leads the way with nine gold medals, followed by Great Britain with 4 gold medals and Italy and Yugoslavia with three gold medals each. And Serbia has emerged in the 20th century as a powerhouse winning gold medals in 2016, 2020 and 2024. The US Olympic Team is the only non-European team to ever even win an Olympic medal. That means that over the past 124 years Olympic teams from Asia, Australia, Africa and all the other America's have been shut out! Europe's dominance in water polo comes down to several ingredients: (a) Deep-rooted systems: elite domestic leagues (b) strong youth development (c) government and club investment and (d) a cultural reverence for the sport in countries like Hungary, Serbia, and Italy. Local leagues draw good crowds and media attention, and players are treated as stars. As a result many players from the US team now migrate to Europe to play for one of these professional teams following college. Approximately 17-18 former US Olympians are playing for various European clubs at this time trying to elevate and fine tune their game in time for the LA 2028 Games where they will then compete against their former European teammates! So since 1904 (in twenty two attempts) no US water polo team has ever finished higher than silver. Six times American teams have won silver. Starting in 1984, at the last LA Olympics, Team USA would win its first silver medal ever led by a legend in the sport: Terry Schroeder. A four-time U.S. Olympic water polo player from Santa Barbara, Schroeder is immortalized in bronze outside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, his nude torso standing tall for the idealized, universal Olympic athlete. He was the model for the male statue that was bolted into place outside the stadium's peristyle end in June 1984 and serves as a meeting place for countless football, soccer and concert fans. 'I don't go down that way a whole lot,' says Schroeder, a chiropractor, longtime Pepperdine water polo coach, and part-time assistant to the U.S. water polo team.. 'But I have patients who come in and say, 'I was at the Coliseum and I saw you down there.' And I think, 'Oh, great.' How did Schroeder end up posing for a bronze statue for the 1984 Games and enduring ribbing from teammates that goes on even now? For starters, the United States never took part in the 1980 Summer Olympic Games. Merging athletics and politics for reasons many still don't understand, President Jimmy Carter announced in 1980 that the United States would boycott the coming summer's Olympic Games. This altered the lives of Schroeder and many other athletes. "The boycott in `80 really changed a lot of things," Schroeder said. "It changed the way I thought about the Olympic Games, about the sport of water polo and what it meant to me in my life, it was kind of a big crossroads for sure. It made me think about what I really wanted and what I was getting out of this and why I was really doing it.' While the United States was among the favorites in 1984, it didn't mean things would be easy. That said Team USA rolled early on, downing Greece 12-5, Brazil 10-4, and Spain 10-8 in preliminary play. In the final round things got a little tighter. Team USA edged the Netherlands 8-7, toppled Australia 12-7 and on August 9 defeated West Germany 8-7 to approach the medal round undefeated. They would take on rival and fellow gold medal favorite, Yugoslavia. "In the final we were ahead 5-2, knowing we had that game. He continued, "that feeling of being ahead 5-2 and knowing we had that shot to win the gold medal and I had a goal taken away at the end by an offensive call," laments Schroeder. Then Yugoslavia scored three unanswered goals in the fourth quarter to force a 5-5 draw, winning the gold medal on goal differential. Terry Schroeder would go on to do a lot in the game of water polo. After making his long-awaited Olympic debut in 1984 and leading his squad to a silver medal, he would earn another silver at the 1988 Olympic Games and come painfully close to a third-straight medal at the 1992 Games in Spain. Starting in 1986 he became head coach at Pepperdine, his alma mater; he guided the team to the pinnacle of the game at that level, an NCAA crown, in 1997. He returned to the National Team scene in the mid-2000s and took over in 2007 as head coach of a down-on-its-luck Senior National Team led by a rising star by the name of Tony Azevedo. Considered perhaps the greatest men's water polo player the United States has ever seen, Tony Azevedo, born in Brazil and raised in California into a water polo family dynasty, was first coached by his dad, Ricardo—a longtime player and coach at the US National Team level. Azevedo would make his Olympic debut as a player in the 2000 Sydney Games, just months removed from his senior prom. Azevedo would go on to Stanford and win two NCAA championships and a record four-straight Cutino Award honors as the college game's best player. He returned to the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. In 2008, he would captain a U.S. team that returned to the Olympic podium for the first time in 20 years, claiming a silver medal at the Beijing Games. He continued to serve as captain at the next two Olympic Games in London in 2012 and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Azevedo is fourth all-time in Olympic water polo history, with 61 goals scored overall. Ben Hallock is a two-time Olympian who was a key player for Team USA in the 2024 Games in Paris. Hallock was a California state champion in high school and an NCAA champion at Stanford in 2019. That year also marked his second in a row winning the Cutino Award as the top men's college player in the sport. But Hallock chose to leave Stanford before his final season to play professional water polo for Pro Recco in Italy. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound center is now in his fifth season with Recco, where he's able to fine-tune his game by playing so many games against some of the best players in the world. 'In the U.S. the highest level is pretty much college,' Hallock, originally of Westlake Village, California, said. 'Here, you have older players. You have grown men doing this for a living. It's the reps and amount of play you get,' he said. 'It's the quality and the strength of everyone around you and the amount of games you play. It's consistently been a humbling experience. If you don't bring everything out there, then you get humbled.' If you want to beat the best you have to play with the best. Hallock and most of his teammates from the Paris 2024 team have been playing in Europe for pro teams all over the continent. I interviewed one of them, Dylan Woodhead, a 6'-7' defender who has been playing in Athens Greece. Dylan, Ben and Team USA are currently back together training in California as this story is being published and I hope to catch a practice or watch them play an exhibition match against the Australian Olympic Team. Team USA will once again have its work cut out in 2028 at the LA Olympic Games. Will this be the Games where they finally get past Hungary, Serbia and the other European powers to claim a gold medal? I certainly hope so!
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes Premiere ‘The Plague' Twists the Pock-Marked Perils of Adolescence Into Body Horror — with Joel Edgerton
Cannes festival director Thierry Frémaux promised that this year's Un Certain Regard sidebar lineup would be more driven by narrative and genre than years past. Looking at Charlie Polinger's feature directing debut 'The Plague,' he wasn't kidding. This harrowing, 35mm-shot story of pubescent boys tormenting each other at a water polo summer camp doubles as a coming-of-age drama and an adolescent, acne-scarred body-horror nightmare. The 12- and 13-year-olds populating its frames are all afraid of catching an imagined (or not?) contagion — let's call it puberty — that turns their brains into 'mush,' one says, and manifests with psoriasis-like lesions on their bodies. But the words and almost ritualistic humiliations they exchange (think the mocking of speech impediments and centipedes thrown into your bed at night) are even more wounding. More from IndieWire 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' Review: The Weeknd's Emotionally Threadbare Vanity Project Is All Skips, No Repeats 'Re-Animator' Star Barbara Crampton Looks Back on Her Genre Breakout with Nothing but Love (and Some 'Slippery, Gooey' Memories) Polinger, an AFI Conservatory grad working with many of his fellow alumni including cinematographer Steven Breckon, based this disturbing and personal film on his own experiences as a kid at an all-boys summer sports camp, culling from his rediscovered journals to write the script. Millennials who came of age in the aughts ('The Plague' is set in summer 2003) will recognize the touchstones, from the period music references to the Capri-Suns everyone seems to be slurping. 'I was leaning into the Capri-Sun, into sort of this pre-internet or very early internet age, with the kind of jokes that they make,' Polinger told IndieWire. Joel Edgerton, who stars as the boys' generous but out-of-his-depth coach in terms of dealing with unruly and toxic boys, initially received the script from Polinger's agent and wanted to direct it. 'I was like, 'I really have to direct this one. It's too special to me.' He was just really cool about it. We ended up getting on a call. He really related to the themes, the social dynamics of these kids, and bullying, and his own experiences being a 12-year-old boy in Australia. He basically just said, look, I'm happy to produce the film and act in the film, and do anything I can to help get this made.' Polinger and his casting director Rebecca Dealy ('Hereditary') looked at thousands of tapes of kids to cast the right ensemble. They landed on 'Griffin in Summer' star Everett Blunck as Ben, the hero of this story if there is one, and the seemingly innocent kid through whose eyes we see the film. The kind of kid who will see with his awkward, ruthlessly bullied peer who's left alone at the cafeteria. They found Kayo Martin, who plays the camp's freckled top bully Jake who presides over the cool-kids table with imperious authority, off social media. It's a breakout performance for a young star. 'He felt exactly like the type of bully or character who messes with your head in a way that I feel like I haven't seen represented in a movie or TV show very often because he's always very understated,' Polinger said. 'You never know if he's joking or not, and it really kind of gets inside your head. He is so comfortable hanging out with adults all the time and going around New York, going to all the bagel shops and all these places [where Martin does social media pranks], and he does have a certain maturity level that can actually play very uncanny in the situation with other boys.' There are scenes in 'The Plague' that pit the child actors into adult scenarios that are, in real life, likely familiar to them. In one scene, they share sexual fantasies and talk about masturbation from across each other's bunk beds. Directing children always comes with its own set of challenges, even with parents on set, but Polinger and his team worked with an intimacy coordinator to burrow into these most uncomfortable (but relatable) moments. 'The first day with the intimacy coordinator, we all sat around and we were talking about the scene, and she was coming at it very delicately: 'Is this something that you guys know about?' And they were miles ahead of her in terms of what they already knew and the jokes that they were making,' Polinger said. 'It was really important to me that we were capturing that age in a real way. [The actors] were very fearless and just excited to dive into it… They were so much more mature than you would imagine.' In terms of references for the film's more horror-leaning later stretches, Polinger wanted to combine the feel of 1980s and aughts coming-of-age teen movies with a more genre-oriented sensibility (comparisons to 'Black Swan,' eventually, are invited). 'I love those movies about boys, though I often feel like a lot of movies about young boys are either a little more sort of broey hangout or a little more nostalgic, kind of biking-around-the-suburbs type of thing,' he said. Movies like Bo Burnham's 'Eighth Grade' and Julia Ducournau's 'Raw,' he said, 'capture a social dread and vulnerability of your body and something you don't see as much with boys because it requires a certain vulnerability to be an object of terror in that way… I was even looking at some sort of dread-filled, 'Shining' daylight kinds of horror movies, [with] huge imposing spaces.' Movies about military situations, like Stanley Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket,' also came to mind. Even Claire Denis' 'Beau Travail,' which is 'such an incredible exploration of masculinity.' Every rising indie filmmaker these days wants to shoot on film — who doesn't? — which can be a big upfront non-negotiable from a first-time director. But 'The Plague' benefits from that celluloid touch, making the movie like a grainy memory of a bad dream. 'It was pretty challenging. We had to find some additional funds to do it. We got a lot of help from Kodak. [It was] definitely hard, and especially with kids and pools and all the other variables that add more time, and having tight days. The film [aspect] just added a whole other wrench into it,' Polinger said, though 'The Plague' did shoot during a sweltering summertime when the kid actors were out of school. Shooting on film, though, he said, 'just made it feel magical. We were capturing something that felt timeless and, to me, there's no comparison. It looks so great to shoot on film, and these kids' faces and closeups just rendered in such a beautiful way.' 'The Plague' will seek a distributor at Cannes, though Polinger already has wind in his sails with another movie lined up, and at A24: an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Masque of the Red Death' starring Sydney Sweeney. 'The Plague,' which Polinger wants to be seen in theaters, would be a smart fit for any distributor looking for a risky genre offering, and one that offers no easy answers about the prickly (and, yes, pimply) perils of adolescence. 'The Plague' premieres at Cannes on Thursday, May 16. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Best of IndieWire The 19 Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in May, from 'Fair Play' to 'Emily the Criminal' Martin Scorsese's Favorite Movies: 86 Films the Director Wants You to See Christopher Nolan's Favorite Movies: 44 Films the Director Wants You to See
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
When St. Ignatius water polo captain chose state tournament over graduation, school brought graduation to her
Veronica Rauch had a choice; attend her high school graduation at St. Ignatius College Prep, or play in the IHSA State Quarterfinals for girls' water polo. Both were happening just an hour apart. As team captain, Rauch chose the latter. Rauch said there wasn't even a decision to be made when it came to attending graduation or playing water polo. "I'm the goalie, and I'm on the team, and it's my responsibility and my desire to be at that game," she said. "It's a huge accomplishment for the team, and because of the accomplishment, I want to be there. Because of the name of the game, I want to be there." St. Ignatius water polo head coach Nicole Lum said the game was a nailbiter. "I've been coaching a long time, and I've never experienced anything quite like it," she said. "We had a player who got out there who had not played water polo before this season. She's a junior, and she got in there, and she gave us a goal; and it was an incredible, incredible moment," Rauch said. That was followed by an incredible moment. Dr. Sterling Brown, the prefect of studies – or principal – at St. Ignatius, brought the graduation to Rauch. "I knew it was far, but I didn't realize what the timing would be," he said. The graduation was at 6 p.m. The game was at 7 p.m. Brown made the drive from the graduation in Chicago to Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, where the state quarterfinals were taking place. "My experience for her has been four years of giving to this place, and I'm glad that in a very small way, we could give something back," he said. As for the game, the team didn't win. "They gave a Herculean effort, every last one of them. It was fantastic," Lum said. But Rauch said, in the end, one thing mattered most. "The way we played was a win in itself," she said. Now that she has graduated, Rauch is heading to University of Alabama, where she's going to study vocal performance. She wants to be an opera singer one day. If her beautiful singing voice wasn't enough, Rauch also speaks several languages, among them Mandarin.
News.com.au
22-05-2025
- News.com.au
Man who caused St Andrew's Cathedral School lockdown to be released from custody
The man who threatened staff at the school where water polo coach Lilie James was murdered by Paul Thijssen will walk free on Thursday. Marc Ben James O'Har, 46, appeared at Downing Centre Court on Thursday to be sentenced after being charged over his erratic behaviour at St Andrew's Cathedral School on Monday that sent the building into lockdown. O'Har, 46. pleaded guilty to one charge of enter enclosed lands without lawful excuse, one charge of intimidate – intend fear physical etc harm and one charge of goods in custody. The court was told of O'Har's extensive criminal record. His defence acknowledged that he'd made 'very silly decisions' and said he had been subjected to 'particularly onerous' conditions in custody due to delays and had been on suicide watch. She suggested to the court that O'Har had already been 'substantially punished' due to these factors. The court was told that O'Har had recently come out of jail and had only slept on a mattress seven times since his release. He was introduced to heroin by his brother at 13, the same brother who now wanted to assist in getting O'Har to rehab, the court was told. Magistrate Susan McIntyre sentenced O'Har to a community corrections order (CCO) for 12 months for stalk/intimidate intend fear physical etc harm. The CCO is subject to additional conditions of O'Har being supervised by a Community Corrections Officer and him reporting to City Community Corrections within 24 hours upon release from custody These conditions were added to a previous CCO issued on May 6 in relation to a domestic violence incident. No penalty was imposed for the charge of enter enclosed lands without lawful excuse and the charge of goods in personal custody suspected being stolen. O'Har previously had an outburst during a hearing on Tuesday. When asked by magistrate Greg Grogin if he would like to speak to his solicitor on Tuesday after refusing to do so the night before, O'Har teed off. He said he was 'f**king naked' when his solicitor contacted him, and he did not want to speak to a lawyer in the nude. O'Har continued to speak rapidly and loudly, with expletives littered throughout, despite Mr Grogin's interjections. The outburst stopped when Mr Grogin sternly told Mr O'Har to stop speaking, after which O'Har confirmed that he would now like to speak to his legal representative. Following the outburst, the court was told that O'Har walked straight into a room full of students on Monday after threatening to jab a security guard with a needle. O'Har threatened a security guard who attempted to stop him from entering the school. 'Don't touch me or I will jab you with a needle,' the court was told O'Har had said. He later returned to the premises and saw the same security guard, prompting O'Har to say, 'Do you remember me? I know you.' He then walked in through the sliding doors. O'Har was then able to enter a classroom full of students, at which point his lawyer said his client realised the extent of what he had done and began to leave the premises on his own. Police attended the school about 9.45am on Monday after reports a man had earlier threatened staff and returned to the campus, NSW Police said in a statement. 'The school was placed in lockdown and a search of the building, on the corner of Druitt and Kent streets, was conducted with the assistance of specialist resources,' NSW Police said. 'Despite an extensive search of the grounds, the man could not be located, and the lockdown was lifted.' About noon, police were called to a hotel in Surry Hills where O'Har was allegedly acting erratically and refusing to leave the premises. He was arrested and identified as the same man wanted over the alleged earlier incident at St Andrew's. O'Har was taken to Surry Hills police station and charged. It is understood O'Har is not connected with the school but is one of many homeless people sleeping rough near Town Hall. A school spokeswoman described O'Har as having been 'disorientated' when he entered the school grounds. 'We have now established that a disorientated man entered an external area of the senior school and was off site less than a minute later,' she said. 'The school thanks its staff and the NSW Police for their professional and calm response.' Ms James was murdered by Thijssen on the evening of October 25, 2023. He cornered her inside a bathroom of the prestigious Sydney private school where they were colleagues. The water polo coach died due to blunt force trauma to the head after being attacked with a hammer by her ex-partner, whom she had broken up with a few days before her murder. Hours after the murder, Thijssen took his own life at Vaucluse, with his remains found in the rocks at Diamond Bay Reserve two days after Ms James's murder.
