Banana Heads from the Acrapolips

Olympic Games

Lou Gioia, die-hard Brooklynite and water polo fan, takes the reader on the adventure of a lifetime to Athens during the 2004 Olympics. Affectionately calling themselves “banana heads,” Lou and his best friend, Tommy, could not be more hilarious travel companions. Whether it’s their flippant personalities or those famous Brooklyn accents, they seem to generate excitement, confusion, and flat-out hilarity everywhere. Aside from their drunken antics and comical culture clashes, this is not a “feel good story” of athletic triumph. This is a story about the multiple dimensions of friendship and affiliation; about two guys laughing their butts off or crying like babies on each other’s shoulder.

Lou Gioia

PublishAmerica

2004

2006/10/30

Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 2 cm

291 pp.

paperback

eng

Book

ISBN-10: 1413797733

ISBN-13: 978-1413797732

Gioia, L. (2006)

Olympic Games XXVIII Athens 2004

2004

"We Bluegills" (Robert Travieso 1998)

Fiction

"From our side of the pool we Bluegills watch the boys from the Coast Guard saunter out of the visitor’s locker room to a complicated group clap that resounds in layered echoes all across the natatorium; over the sloshing pale green of the pool water, out onto the lacquered deck tiles, bang against the concrete ceiling and back down again, and from the roar in the stands it seems they must have brought their own fans, or else turned ours instantly against us. The Coasties all look, to a man, all of them, like bachelorette strip-tease dancers, or gigolos even, each one of them shaved and tanned and buffed to a shine with a crew cut in a black Speedo, each emerging from the tunnel out into the fluorescent light one by one by one, from the shortest man to the tallest, in perfectly timed increments, each stopping to pose for a beat at the edge of the entranceway with his hands upon his hips before strolling on toward the visitor’s bench, the whole line of them eventually laid out before us like a de-nested matryoshka doll, the entire rise and run of them forming a perfectly apportioned slope of blunt brushcuts, and a foot below that, a perfectly angled plane of broad shoulders."

Robert Travieso

One Story 111 (2008)

2008

2008

One Story

Robert Travieso

http://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=story&story_id=111

19 pp.

eng

Manuscript

Travieso, R. (2008) 'We Bluegills' One Story 111.

Travieso, R. (2008) 'We Bluegills' One Story 111.

One Story

Buck Rogers' Water Polo Caper

Comic books, strips, etc.

Neptune v. Earth in the sold-out inter-planetary championship water polo match. Buck Rogers gets a ticket and free entry to the practice scrimmage thanks to his friend Crane, a star earth player. The earthlings are at a disadvantage because the Neptunians can play underwater so they must wear specially adapted masks but 'this is interplanetary water polo ... a rugged test of strength ... as are all sports in the year 2461'! Neptune's star player Jarik has other plans - a heist of precious emeralds. After he kills his accomplice, Buck Rogers gets in on the case. Jarik hides the emeralds in his belt but Crane alerts Buck. At the end of the game ( 6-5 in Neptune's favour), Buck confronts his adversary who refuses to without a fight. The two grapple, Buck is almost killed but recovers. When Jarik again escapes his clutches into the pool, he releases the water and captures his villain!

George Tuska

Fritz Lieber

Amazing Stories. Sunday Strip.

National Newspaper Service Syndicate

1961/05/28-1961/08/27

1961/05/28-1961/08/27

The Dille Family Trust

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Amazing Stories 1928/08-

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

eng

Buck Rogers Water Polo Caper

The Dille Family Trust

Water Polo - Worthing Swimming Club (1898)

Worthing Swimming Club

Originally filmed using the short-lived 68mm process, this was one of a number of films made by William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson during a trip to Worthing (just along the South Coast from Brighton and Hove, already well established as centres of pioneering film activity thanks to the efforts of Esmé Collings, G.A. Smith and James Williamson).

It is hard to tell whether the fully-clothed spectator who inadvertently joins the game halfway through did so of his own volition or as a result of being pushed (though the fact that he dives rather than falls suggests the former), and impossible to tell whether Dickson planned this in advance, but it adds an element of drama and unpredictability to what would otherwise be a routine actuality short. (Michael Brooke)

A game of water polo at Worthing Swimming Club, viewed from a position behind one of the goals. The ball is thrown in and the match is seen in progress. One of the spectators is pushed in, and has to swim back to safety.

William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson

BFI (British Film Index) 789992

British Mutoscope & Biograph Company

1898

1898

British Film Institute

Only via a UK library

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/789992/

Format: black and white

Format: silent

Film gauge: 35mm

Length: 17ft

eng

Film

BFI 789992

Dickson, William Kennedy-Laurie (1898) Water Polo - Worthing Swimming Club. Documentary. British Mutoscope & Biograph Company.

1898

Worthing

United Kingdom

1898

British Film Institute

British Film Institute

Todos mis hermanos (Manel Estiarte (2009))

All My Brothers

Manel Estiarte

International Athlete

Olympic Games

Manuel Estiarte (ESP) was inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame in 2007. His playing achievements are legendary: 1980 Olympic Games: 4th; 1984 Olympic Games: 4th; 1988 Olympic Games: 6th; 1992 Olympic Games: silver; 1996 Olympic Games: gold; 2000 Olympic Games: 4th; 1991, 1994 World Championships: silver; 1998 World Championships: gold; 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999 FINA World Cup: bronze; 1983,1991, 1993, 1997, 1999 European Championships: silver (1991), bronze (1983,1993), 5th (1997), 6th (1999);

At just 5'8" and weighing 145 pounds, Manuel Estiarte would seem to be an unlikely candidate to be considered the greatest player of all-time in a sport whose players average 6'3” and 200 plus pounds. But Manuel's career proved once again that it's not the size of the man, but the size of his heart and what's in the head that counts the most. Born in Manresa, Spain, in 1961, Manuel Estiarte began playing water polo as soon as he could swim and at the Barcelona Swimming Club (BSC) was identified as a water polo prodigy. He was 15 when he made his international debut and within three years was the top scorer at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. He repeated as the leading scorer in 1984 Los Angeles with a record 34 goals as the Most Outstanding Player of the Games. He led all players in scoring again in 1988 at Seoul with 26 goals.

In 1992 Estiarte became a national hero after leading Spain to its first-ever Olympic medal, silver, in their host city of Barcelona. But finishing the Games as top scorer again was little comfort following a dramatic gold medal final against Ratko Rudic's Italian team. Estiarte converted a penalty 42 seconds from full time to put Spain ahead, but nine seconds later Italy equalized and went on to win in extra time. Four years later, in Atlanta, Spain and Estiarte were once again in the Olympic final, but this time the result was different. With ten seconds to play and Spain up 7- 5 against Croatia, Estiarte took possession.

"I've dreamt of this moment all my life," he said afterwards. "The last ten seconds of the Olympic final, I have the ball and Spain wins the gold medal. I waited five Olympics, but it finally happened." All totaled, in a career that spanned over two decades, he competed in more Olympic Games, six, and scored more than any other player in Olympic history, 127. He competed in over 578 international games for the Spanish team, scoring over 600 goals. For many years, he played in the Italian Professional League with Club Pescara winning a water polo grand slam of four European Championships. In 1998, he was voted Best Player of the Perth World Championships. “I had the privilege to take part in six Olympic Games, and in each one of them I felt emotions too special to be described. From the first, when I was just a young man, to the last, where I won and I had the honour of carrying my homeland's flag."

Following his retirement after the Sydney Games he served as a member of the International Olympic Committee Athletes´s Commission until 2004.

In this book, with a preface by Josep Guardiola i Sala and an epilogue by Juan Antonio Samaranch, Estiarte talks about his amazing life as the world's greatest water polo player.

Manel Estiarte

Plataforma

1961-2009

2009

Preface: Josep Guardiola i Sala

Epilogue: Juan Anotonio Samaranch

spa

Book

ISBN: 9788496981379

Estiarte, M. (2009)

Mañana lo Dejo: Confidencias de un Campeon Olimpico que Vencio a las Drogas y al Alcohol (Pedro Garcia Aguado (2008))

Tomorrow I'll stop. Confessions of an Olympic Champion who Conquered Drugs and Alcohol

Drugs in Sport

Olympic Games

Athletes--Drug use

The Spanish waterpolo player Pedro Garcia Aguado (Olympic Games, silver: 1992 and gold: 1996; World Championship silver: 1991, 1994; and gold: 1998, 2001) offers an excellent first person account of his life. During his career as an Olympic medallist he was afflicted with an addiction to nightlife and the uncontrolled consumption of drugs and alcohol. This is not just a book about water polo or sporting feats, nor simply just about drugs or how to overcome addiction. It is much more. In these pages we relive world championships finals and competitions at the highest level, with anecdotes from a group of young men who hold the world in their hands, and with this an account of a life out of control marked by the compulsive consumption of every type of substance. This intense narration concludes with Pedor Garcia Aguado’s own recovery during three months of therapy to overcome his addiction and the dedicated professionalism of his therapists and others in dealing with his terrible problem. This is a sincere and direct book, which strives to educate without being preachy, and in which the reader can follow a life as fast as it is tragic and fascinating. This is a book that uncovers the secrets of the world of sport at the highest level that we could never have imagined, the secrets of a subterranean nocturnal existence that we would prefer not to imagine.

Pedro Garcia Aguado

Bresca

2008

2008

pp. 157

spa

Book

Garcia Aguado, P. (2008) Mañana lo Dejo: Confidencias de un Campeon Olimpico que Vencio a las Drogas y al Alcohol

Garcia Aguado, P. (2008) Mañana lo Dejo: Confidencias de un Campeon Olimpico que Vencio a las Drogas y al Alcohol. Bresca: Barcelona.

Spain

1968-2008

Vampire High

Fiction

Cody Elliot isn't doing very well at school so his parents give him a choice: Our Lady of Perpetual Homework or Vlad Dracul Magnet school. He opts for the latter where the students tend to be tall and pale and looked after by a yellow-eyed wolf named Charon. Cody soon understands why he is accepted. His fellow-students will die if they get wet but the state requires the school to have a water polo team!

Douglas Rees

Laurel Leaf

2003

2003

eng

Rees, D. (2003) Vampire High. Delacorte; New York.

Aficionado

Life in the Extreme

Fiction, Short Story

In this science fiction short story, after a rocket malfunction sends him crashing into the ocean, Hacker Torrey encounters talkative and water polo playing dolphins who might just promise mankind a lifeline.

David Brin

Popular Science Magazine Special Edition 8 (1998)

Brin, D. (2003) Tomorrow Happens. Nesfa Press; Framingham, MA.

1998

1998

1998

eng

Brin, D. (1998) 'Aficionado'. http://www.davidbrin.com/aficionado.htm. Accessed 19 December 2010.<br />

David Brin

Mud Crab Boogie

Sports

Fiction, Juvenile

Extreme Water Polo is the water polo of the 90s. And when Les Norton catches the semi-final on TV he is amazed to see that the man behind Extreme Polo is his old mate, Neville ͩzegynixon. So when Neville calls out of the blue and asks Les to drive the Murrumbidgee Mud Crabs up to Sydney for the final, Les takes him on. But things are never as simple as they seem and Les finds himself drawn into an hilarious adventure involving the Mud Crabs. Les Norton again takes on the world via Robert G. Barrett′s pen.

Robert G. Barrett

Harper-Collins

1998

1998

1998

Robert G. Barrett

ISBN: 9780732258436

ISBN10: 073225843X

Paperback

Trimsize: 174 x 174 x 19 mm

eng

Barret, R. G., (1998) Mud Crab Boogie. Sydney: Harper-Collins.

Olympic Games, Beijing 2008. Commemorative Coin, Hungary.

Olympic Games

Hungary; Olympics; Water Polo; 5,000 Forint; 2008; Proof Silver Crown; COA.

Obverse: MAGYAR KOZTARSASAG above, 5000 FORINT below coat of arms of the Republic of Hungary, superimposed over a wavy line symbolising water.

Reverse: XXIX NYARI OLYMPIAIA JATEKOK. Below water polo player, chest raised out of water, holding ball in right hand, head facing right and preparing to shoot.

Gábor Kereszthury

Magyar Nemzeti Bank

2008

2008-04-08

Mint: 18,000 pieces, of which 14,000 were produced using a special proof technology.

Weight: 31.46g

Silver count: 0.9356oz

Diameter: 38.61mm (milled edge)

Denomination: 5000forint

Silver, milled edge

hun

Image

Coin

Hungary KM#808 2008

Hungary KM#808 2008

Olympic Games XXIX Beijing 2008

Beijing

2008

Hungarian Mint