FINA World Chamionships 2007 - Melbourne (AUS)

First Gold Medal for Croatia

The fact that Croatia dispensed with world champion Serbia in the semifinals and then Olympic champion Hungary in the final was testament to the spirit of the team and the mentoring of the exceptional super coach, Ratko Rudic


By WAVE Editorial Team
Source: www.fina.org


A capacity crowd of nearly 5000 people was treated to some rare water polo action at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre. Both medal matches needed more than regulation time and an earlier match for fifth place also needed a penalty shootout. But it was Croatia's night with all its team members taking a dip, including the officials, as celebrations reached fever pitch.

The fact that Croatia dispensed with world champion Serbia in the semifinals and then Olympic champion Hungary in the final was testament to the spirit of the team and the mentoring of the exceptional super coach, Ratko Rudic. Croatia went two up at the start but Hungary had the quarter-time lead. Croatia led 4-3 at halftime but the see-saw nature of the game had Hungary back in charge at 6-5 at the final break. Hungary led 7-6 halfway through the final quarter but Maro Jokovic levelled the game to force extra time.

It was the previously unheralded Pavo Markovic, with just three goals to his tally before the final, who scored in each period of extra time, compared to Gergely Kiss' solo goal for Hungary at the end of the first period. The victory was sweet for Croatia but Hungary rued another World Championship loss but at least gained a sixth silver medal to go with two gold and one bronze.

Spain needed sudden-death penalty shootout to beat outgoing world champion Serbia 18-17 in an absolute thriller. Spain had to come back and level the game six times in normal time before taking the lead inside the last four minutes only to see Andrija Prlainovic level at 8-8 three seconds from time. Serbia won the first period of extra but Spain scored in the second to send the game to penalty shootout. Each team missed a shot in the first rotation of 10 shots. In sudden death four sets of players converted but then Filip Filipovic had his shot blocked while Mario Garcia converted to win the bronze on the 20th penalty shot of the shootout.

The top three teams automatically qualified for the Beijing Olympic Games so the result had more than a medal riding on it. The major FINA trophies went to the United States' Tony Azevedo as the highest goal-scorer and to Germany's Alexander Tchigir for the best goalkeeper. Azevedo headed off the standout player of the tournament, Spain's Guillermo Molina, who inspired his team and scored 18 goals, including five in the bronze-medal final. Canada's Kevin Graham and Germany's Heiko Nossek scored 15 each while Hungary's Peter Biros and Serbia's Aleksandar Sapic scored 14. Joining Tchgir, Azevedo and Molina as the stars of the tournament were Greek centre forward Georgios Afroudakis, Croatia's Miho Boskovic, Italy's Maurizio Felugo and Hungary's Daniel Varga. In the lower-end matches, Italy beat Greece 16-15 in a penalty shootout for fifth and Russia downed Germany 11-8 for seventh place.