After Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004), Hungary wins the water polo gold medal in Beijing as well (and remains the most successful country in the history of water polo). So far, only the UK managed to get more than two gold medals in a row in water polo (at the beginning of the 20th century).

You were FANTASTIC, guys! Thank you for the great match! Thank you for helping to keep Hungary in the top 10 of the most successful countries of the modern Olympic Games! Thank you for setting an example for the young! Also, a giant amount of credit goes to Dénes Kemény, the coach/manager of the Hungarian team. Excellent work, Dénes!

The final (Hungary vs. USA) was really exciting. The United States proved to be a powerful and challenging opponent. It was a great final.

Congratulation to the Hungarian team for the gold medal! They were really fantastic and it was well deserved! The USA team was also great but fortunately our team was better.

My favorite match is still the Athen final in 2004 where we were able to beat the Serbian team by one goal (8-7) and earned the gold medal. Couple of minutes before the end the result was 5-7 but we were able to come back (sore 3 goals in a row) and beat them. Because of that match I lost 2-3 years from my lifespan!

Yes, congrats guys... to each his onw, in this case, the gold medal. After all, you´re the number one in waterpolo...

As we are in C1 men cathegory with Michal Martikan, C2 men cathegory with Peter and Pavol Hochschorner and in K1 women cathegory with Elena Kaliska...

Thank you all

Your three gold medals -- all in kayak-canoe, nice! It's a pity that the Riszdorfer_brothers-Vlcek-Tarr didn't succeed to be the first in K4-1000, but the silver medal is very nice too, of course. In kayak-canoe, we got two gold medals (C1-1000 men, K2-500 women), and a silver plus a bronze. I wish there were (even) more Olympic events in it!

By the way, Jamaica has 7 gold medals, all from the same category (sprint I think) They do know how to run, no doubt.


I can imagine. Epic Divine Encounter eh?

Do you think the mineral water Dénes is drinking all the time is magically enchanted and that strengthens the team somehow?

"Although I have debts, I'll pay Dénes' mineral water for one year I swear, if they win! I'm so excited!" -- I read this fan comment on a Hungarian site today morning.

I agree with all of the above, great team you Hungarians have for waterpolo. I always wonder how come you're so good at it. Our (Croatian) team was a big dissapointment (funny thing about them, 90% of players in our team come from Dubrovnik city, which has only about 40 000 people).Our Handball team was also awful. Our girls did kick ass in tae-kwon-do, but we had rather poor olympics.
The final match (Hungary vs USA) was exellent. USA is becoming a force to be reckoned with in all sports now. They'll probably do wonders in soccer soon.

I doubt it. I do not think they can make wonders in the next 10-15 years. The reason is that not enough people is playing football and talented kids usually choose american football or basketball because they are more popular sports. They will be good in football but not soon.

I don't know about football (soccer), but I think this is a definite tendence:


"All sports" is an exaggeration, but it's close to the truth. Where they were in most team sports some decades ago? Nowhere. For example, where they were in voleyball? And where are they now in it? The world's elite. And then water-polo -- Terry Schroeder did a good job, and if the members of that team grow accustomed to each other, they might become a challenging opponent even of the Hungarian team.

Well, I ment "major sports", not archery etc.altough I think they won a few medals there also. They have very advanced training programs, and there's 250 million of them. and they've got the money to invest in sports.

Hungary is only country of 10 million people, and isn't a rich country. Our boy only have the pride of our nation.
Thank you guys! Your wrote a happy story after the tragedy of György Kolonics.

Who don't know him:

He was a hungarian sportman in canoe. He won gold medal in C1-500m C2-500 and 2 bronze medal in C2-1000m and he was world champion 13 times. His heart stopped in this summer, he was only 36 years old. His former partner and friend György Kozmann decide to start on the race with a new partner to make a memory for him. He and the new partner Tamás Kiss won a Bronze medal surprisingly. The same medal what Kolonics and Kozzman won in Athen.
This is the history how the hungarians won Bronze medal in canoe TRIPLE 1000m men.
R.I.P. György Kolonics



@Valiant:
Congrat your nation. I enjoyed the slalom contents very much.

@Kerkes
Our handball team suffers through the whole olimpics. Our girls are the 4th but we saw two times how the russians and koreans trash them with a sinmple opened defense tactics.

And let's not forget about the gold medal of Attila Vajda, who was also guided by Kolonics from above.

R.I.P. György Kolonics.


As we know, the Russian referees made a mistake in the Norway-Korea match (the last Norwegian goal shouldn't have been accepted), Norway lodged a protest against the result, and then later withdrew the protest. During the Norway-Hungary match, these Russian referees were completely biased. I'm not sure we would have lost the match if the referees has been fair (I remember they didn't do anything after the shooting hand of Görbitz was simply blocked by Koreans -- a major foul).

Funny thing, nobody ever complains if referees are biased towards his team. If they are, people say that referees were great . Otherwise, referees are always "biased" towards a team. They're just people, not robots, make mistakes, and have emotions.

Indeed, they make mistakes, they can't see everything. They can't follow every minor detail of a match with 100% accuracy. For example, it happened in the waterpolo final as well: the referee didn't notice that the American goalkeeper's hand touched the ball and it went out from there. It would be unfair to say that the referees were biased -- they weren't; as you've said, they're humans too.

However, when the referees seem to miss several events (faults) for one of the teams, and interestingly seem to notice (and strongly penalize) the same types of faults for the other team (at the most exciting moments, when the scores of the teams are equal), one starts to be suspicious that it isn't an accident. In this concrete case, I believe nothing else happened than that the Russian referees wanted to correct/compensate their earlier mistake with the Koreans (in the Norway-Korea match).

Compensation can and does happen, altough usually in the same match. I try to think of a match like a drama movie. Players are actors, and referees are directors. Directors want to make the game dramatic, exciting. It wouldn't be exciting if they'd allow one team to obliterate the other, or if they didn't oversee something. At least they serve as a "pressure valve" for the audience (cursing and all that).

I agree. There is no problem with that, as long as the whole thing is balanced in terms of the teams. For example, in certain events, it's often hard (or impossible) to decide who "started" the "fight" that resulted in a foul, so a good referee tries to be balanced in such cases too.

I've just read an interview with our water polo coach Dénes Kemény, which reminded me to something I wanted to share earlier:

Since his surname (Kemény) means "tough", "hard" in the Hungarian language, the powerful water polo team is very often referred to as the "Tough-guys" ("Kemény-legények") here. The Tough-guys.