Masters can’t ignore gender issue.
Water polo team one win from Olympics
Canada’s men’s water polo team is one win from a berth in the Summer Olympics following a 13-5 win over Argentina on Wednesday night at the 2012 Olympic qualifying tournament at the Kinsmen Sports Centre.
The win clinched a quarterfinal berth for Canada, which now has a 3-0 won-lost record to share first place in Group B with Spain, who demolished Turkey 21-2 on Wednesday.
There’s still a key round-robin match today against that powerhouse Spanish team to determine first and second place in their group of the 11-team tournament.
But Canada’s chance to qualify for a second straight Olympics for the first time is all about performing in Friday’s quarter-final, a crossover match against a Group A opponent yet to be determined.
If Canada does achieve its goal of qualifying for London, it would further validate the progress that has been made since head coach Dragan Jovanovic first led the program in 2004.
An elite goalkeeper from 1978-2000 in Serbia, Jovanovic was named head coach by Water Polo Canada after Canada failed to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics .
After succeeding John Csikos as head coach, Jovanovic set about installing the components of a culture of excellence in the sport in adopted country.
Slowly, but surely, he has produced the results to back up his vision.
“The biggest thing is installing a bit of a system into the program,” said team captain Aaron Feltham. “And getting some of the youngsters to start learning that (system), so that when they do come to the training centre (in Calgary) they’re already a step up from where we were when we started.”
Feltham was part of a second wave of talented teenagers recruited to the so-called Dream Team, an Under-18 team concept developed independently by David Hart of Ottawa in the mid-1990s and funded outside of Water Polo Canada, at least in the early years.
“I just laid the seeds a little bit in the ’90s,” said Hart, now a mentor coach for Water Polo Canada, helping to elevate the quality of coaching across the country. “Basically, we had to start earlier to identify talent.”
Two members of that socalled Dream Team of talented teenagers remain with the senior national team, goalkeeper Robin Randall of Drinkwater, Sask., and Feltham.
Under Jovanovic, Canada has steadily improved at the World Championship level, going from 13th in 2005 in Montreal, to 12th in 2007 in Melbourne, Australia, to eighth in ’09, and most recently, 10th in 2011 in Shanghai.
More crucially, Jovanovic led Canada to a berth in the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, the first time Canada had actually qualified for the Games.
Canada participated in 1972 and ’84 as a fill-in for teams that qualified, then dropped out. And in Montreal in ’76, Canada competed as the host team.
“He’s now had enough to make a mark on the program,” Hart said. “The first thing was, he had to have some success, which he got in 2008, when Canada qualified for Beijing Olympics.
“It’s like, first, I’m going to make believers out of everybody, and then I’m going to do what I know I have to do. That’s what is rolling our now in the program.”
Olympic success and a top 12 ranking is crucial in Canada, because it unlocks the Own the Podium funding vault.
“It’s a visionary approach,” said Water Polo Canada executive director Ahmed El-awadi. “(Jovanovic) has always had the vision, but he hasn’t had the funds. Now he does.”
The before and after contrast is acutely felt by Randall, a 25-year water polo veteran.
When Randall joined that youth national team, he recalled, “there just wasn’t money.
“We have to establish a legacy that’s where this is,” Randall said. “It’s no longer, we don’t qualify for the Olympics, we want to qualify for the Olympics.
“Now it’s, you obviously qualify for the Olympics and you have to get top eight, top six, top four.”
It’s not that Randall or anyone else on Team Canada is looking past Spain today, or their quarter-final match on Friday.
But there is a long-term trajectory for men’s water polo in Canada now, and Jovanovic is the driving force behind it.