BUDAPEST—The first thing that one sees, upon stepping off a plane in the Hungarian capital’s Ferihegy airport and entering the baggage claim area, is a pair of full-wall posters. A tall, lithe Hungarian, naked from the waist up save a bushy Mark-Spitz moustache and a funny little bonnet with ear protection, explodes out of the water with a yellow, volleyball-sized sphere cradled in his hand.
The advertisement, for a mobile phone company, appears twice, once in English and once in Hungarian. But either way, the message is clear: you’re now entering the land of water polo. Enjoy your stay!
Water polo, despite its English moniker, was developed in the UK in the late 19th century as an aquatic variation on rugby. The English wrote the rules and dominated the sport in its early decades, but since the late 1920s, no country – not any of such second-tier water polo nations as Italy, Greece and the former Yugoslavian countries – can match the prodigious water polo expertise and achievements of the Hungarians.
Since 1928, the Hungarian water polo team (in Magyar, the sport is called Vízilabda) has medalled in all but four Summer Olympics, one of which they were forced to skip due to the Eastern Bloc boycott (Los Angeles, 1984). Nine times they’ve won gold, including the past three Olympics.
In one amazing run of invincibility, Hungary went undefeated in 40 consecutive international matches between 1952 and 1956. This remarkable stretch was no easy feat of concentration, considering the political oppression the country experienced during these years at the hands of the Soviets, who brutally put down a popular revolution in November, 1956, one month before a vengeful Hungarian team beat Russia in the most famous match ever played, the “Blood in the Water” encounter at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Certainly there are some smaller countries that have enjoyed extended periods of dominance in a single sport – I’m thinking of Finnish ski jumpers, or Kenyan distance runners, or even Canadian curlers and hockey players – but Hungary’s supremacy in water polo is exceptional for the fact that this nation of ten million is entirely landlocked, and has been since it surrendered some 72 percent of its territory in the post-WWI Treaty of Trianon, including its Mediterranean coastline in what is now Croatia.
Canada’s got lots of ice, Finland’s got lots of snow, and Kenya’s got lots of hills to altitude-train in. Where does Hungarians’ prowess in the water stem from? Well, they have the Danube and Tisza rivers, and the sprawling Lake Balanton, but those get awfully cold in winter, when the temperature rarely rises above freezing.
And so to solve this sporting riddle I, your intrepid Sportstrotter, have braved the elements of Hungary in January to attempt to explain this nation’s water-borne prowess. And through grueling, exhaustive research and sleuthing, I think I may have solved this intricate mystery.
Um, they have these things called thermal baths? And, um, they’re awesome?
Yes, despite the large expanse of territory that the losing Hungarian Empire surrendered after WWI, the brain trust managed to hang on to many of the lands located above geothermal springs, not to mention Lake Héviz, the world’s largest thermal lake. Budapest is especially blessed. Along with a preponderance of regular all-weather swimming pools, the city also sports some 15 geothermal spas open to the public. Canadians became the best in the world at hockey because kids spent the country’s long, frigid winters doing the most fun thing around: skating and shooting pucks on outdoor rinks. What Hungarian kid wouldn’t take to water in a place like this?
Mlle. Trotter had some important business meetings on Monday, so I decided to do as the locals do, and headed to the famed Széchenyi thermal baths in City Park. Built in 1913, the neo-Baroque bathhouse complex is located about 250 metres from an outdoor skating rink, yet still features three year-round outdoor pools.
And why not? Even on a snowy Monday afternoon in January, the place was packed with tourists and locals alike. And the fact that it was snowing actually enhanced the experience. Just above the three outdoor pools – the hottest of which reaches 38 degrees in winter – hung a thick, steamy cloud where the hot vapour rising off the frothing waters (heated deep within the earth’s hot crust), met the cold, snowy air. When the sun started to set at around 4:30pm, and the Baroque streetlamps in the courtyard began to glow, I ignored the advice of my heavily pruned fingertips and hung around just a little bit longer, soaking in the whole scene.
Of course, if I lived here I’m come back pretty much every day, and eventually become the world’s greatest water polo player, but sadly, that life wasn’t in the cards for me. Heading out of town, I picked up the country’s Magyar-language daily sports paper, Nemzeti Sport, despite the fact that I couldn’t understand a single word written on its pages. The young Hungarian girl at the newsstand looked at me funny as I asked her, in English, whether she’d sell me the 135-Forint paper for 130 Forints (about $0.75), which was all the Hungarian coinage I had left. But she accepted my bashful offer with the typical friendliness that I’d become accustomed to after five days in Budapest.
I opened the paper on the plane and turned to the page headed “Vízilabda,” and saw those trademark helmets with the plastic ear-guards, and knew I’d come to the right place for all my Hungarian water polo news.
The main headline in the water polo section read, “Súlyos Vezetöi Kritika – Mindenki job teljesítményt vár a kiemelten kezelt pólócsapattól.”
I have no idea what any of that means, and even in translation I doubt I’d get the full gist of it. When it comes to water polo, Hungarians are just on a completely different wavelength than everybody else.
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