Andreas: Welcome to this podcast. WaterPolo Expert Talk. Get the insights.

Andreas: Welcome back to the podcast. So we have one of the, let's say most successful players in the water polo community. have Gaggily Kiss. So Gaggily, welcome to the podcast. It's really an honor to have you here. So we do not have really so often attendees or guests, which is really a three time Olympian. champion, European champion, world champion, you name it. Yes. I have all in your collection. So welcome to the podcast. And at the beginning, it's up to you. So I would like to it over to you for a short introduction of yourself. So thank you very much. And welcome everybody. Thank you for the invitation. Yes, I'm coming from a smaller sports respect to basketball or soccer, football, water polo, although the oldest Olympic team sport ever in the history of the Olympic programs because we were the first ever team sport in 1904 or 1900. Water polo was earlier than basketball, football, hell ball and other team sports and the Olympic programs. So it's the most traditional team sport in the Olympic programs and it has a really strange history. because it comes as most of the team sports, comes from GB, from Great Britain. And then it has influences in Western Europe and the United States. So the first part of the 20th century, Western Europe from Germany to Sweden, from France to Belgium, it was the most popular sports. And then Hungary became big from the... 1920s, 1930s, we started to win the Olympic gold, especially it was a big game in Berlin, 1936 against Germany. And I am the part of this tradition. I am a lover of water polo. I think this is the most beautiful sport from my point of view, because it's a team sport. You play with ball, you play with the teammates, you play in water, which is very interesting and nice to play to exist in a deep water. And you have some fights, you have some tricks.

Andreas: So it's a very complete sport with endurance and power and tactics. You can grab the ball with one hand. So water polo is beautiful for me. Like basketball and handball, you can grab the ball on the normal surface, on the normal stadium. You can grab the ball with two hands and in the deep water, water polo you have to catch the ball with one hand. So it's even more difficult. I am part of this tradition. I am a lover of the Hungarian water polo history. We are the most successful nation with the nine gold medals in the history of Olympic water polo programs. And I grew up in this kind of tradition, this kind of feeling. I started my water polo at the age of six in the swimming pool to learn swimming. And immediately I stepped into water polo. So I have never been a swimmer. I just learned how to swim. Not so good, but it was good for water polo. then. Of course, we had a lot of training sessions. You know, in water polo you swim in a preparation like three, four, five, six kilometers one day. So it's, it's very tough, but all my generation, were very unique. Everybody was humble. Everybody was very keen on winning, very keen on working hard, not refusing hard work, which is now Europe a bit of a problem for, for the young generations to suffer, to work hard in the numbers. we see. The statistics, not so many young ones to work eight, nine hours hard day instead of earning lot of money with very little work. It's just statistics, not everybody. It's not true for everyone. But what Apollo is about is working hard. And my generation was very eager and we started to win at the age of 15, 16 with the national team. Under 16 to under 20, we had more than 66 games and we won all the games. and one game draw. So we had no losses. We had this mentality and this power and we stepped into the senior category to play Olympics and world championships and we started to win in that category also. First four years in my career with this golden team, four years, five gold medals. We started our career and then we won three Olympic gold as you mentioned and all together 10 gold medals and

Andreas: 24 medals in the international fields. The unique thing in our team was the continuity that every single competition where we attended, were one of the favorites and 90 % we won medals. The standard was very high. The standard is very high when you can, as you mentioned, when you come from a young age winning everything. Yes, for us failure was not an option. So the expectations are even higher. it's true. Together with the sport, with this Hungarian tradition, we had also the tradition of studying. Most of the water polo players have degree. In my generation, we are 21 players to win in those three Olympic games. Out of 21 players, we have more than 35 university degrees. So most of us has two or three, which means that we are not clever, but we are humble to study, to work, to work on ourselves. Yeah. And you also already mentioned the, maybe the difference between the generations, between your generation and today's generation. And do you think that this really maybe thing not working as hard as your generation does it is the most important point or are there any other differences between your generation and the generation today? Because today's generation of Hungarian water polo national team and also club teams from Budapest, for example, are also very successful over the last couple of years. Generally, if we speak about the society of Europe, or the society of the modern world, there are changes. Our generation had to work hard. Then BWIC became parents, we made families, and our children had a better situation than we had in our childhood. And they don't have to fight as hard, they don't have to sacrifice as much as we did or our parents did.

Andreas: Our parents are from the fifties. In my country, Hungary, we had communism like East Germany. There were totally different words for my father's. My grandfather was in the world war, so totally different generations. I'm thinking about the numbers that if five or six of our generation had to struggle, had to fight hard to be successful, then maybe the numbers are lower for today's generation because we can provide them maybe. housing, university degrees to pay. They don't have to work sometimes till the age of 25, 28, till they finish their school years. So it's a bit different. The today's generation can work very, very hard. There are a lot of children, they are humble to do sports, any kind of sports, not only my sport, water polo, but maybe the numbers are different compared to the older generations. And it also the, let's say, it's some They default the error of the older generation, how we make our children to be adults, how we raise them up. But today, for example, the Hungarian water polo teams, men and women together, they participated in the finals of the European championships, both of those teams. So Hungary has now a successful period. Although we are not the best in the world, like We cannot say we are the best in the world, but we are one of the best four, five countries. Also men and women, have seven to nine stronger nations to fight for the medals and other 10 to 15 okay teams. And then there are the lower levels. Speaking about water polo, biggest problem, not only the change of the generations or the situation of the generations, but also the geographic situation of water polo. The biggest countries and nations in Europe, they have a lot of important sports, but water polo became less important in the last 50, 60 years. Like Germany, like France, we would need very, very strong teams from Germany and France to have bigger competition, have bigger marketing and all the things. The richest, richest Western and Northern European countries,

Andreas: are not so involved in the professional water polo. You have plenty teams, you have a lot of teams in Germany or Holland or Denmark, a lot of teams, less professionalism. Like you had the Champions League winner, Spandau, back then, 35, 36 years ago, super team, West Germany. And now Germany cannot compete in big competitions because they are not qualified most of their competitions. So That's one point. Yeah. So we have exactly the problem you mentioned. Yeah. So that there are other things which are more popular in Germany, like soccer or ball or handball and so on. So we have really not the best relationship to the, to the audience. So which makes it even complicated to get people or kids on board to play or think about, okay, maybe my kids, even a boy or girl has to play water polo maybe somewhere in the future. Yeah, because it is played in the deep water, as I told you, and most of the people, cannot swim well. So they don't know how to move, how to react to deep water. And that's why I think it's the best and the nicest team sport in the world because it's so unique. It's so beautiful. It's so hard. But on the other hand, it's hard to see, understand. Soccer, you understand, offside, corner penalty. That's it. And you can play at home, can play in the playground, you can play in the school. It's much more complicated because you have to swim underwater, you grab each other's hands. It's more complete, like complicated also. So in this short few minutes, we were talking about myself, the history of water polo and the situation of water polo Europe. So we started very hard. These are different. points of views. I don't want to say anything like this is the truth and there is no other truth about the societies, about the Western, Southern or Eastern European situations. It's a bit strange that why we don't have stronger Portugal in water polo despite they have swimming pools and ocean and why we don't have stronger swimming and water polo in Finland. That's no room. Or Denmark. Yeah. It's it's an interesting question.

Andreas: How many tall guys do you have in Germany? How many good swimmers do you have in Germany? We have maybe more large boys or girls in Germany than pools maybe at the moment because pools are also closed and nobody wants to pay for pools and nobody is able to build no pools. So it's really a structural issue as you mentioned. Yeah. So it's a bigger discussion and the bigger point. at the end, one factor is also, as you mentioned, that not each kid is able to swim. at all, at a certain point of time. So that's really a problem. So you can run and play soccer or hockey or basketball, but when you are not able to swim, you're out of the game before the water polo career starts. And also it's difficult to understand for the people in the audience or you put in the TV, it's very interesting. But if you don't know the rules, you don't know the tactics, it's something a bit like outsider thing. And that's the biggest question. If we put in like a summer sport, then it will be a different sport of today's water polo, the official game. Because we should have to play something like beach polo. You could play in every summer from Munich to Stuttgart. You could play outside the Strand feeling. Absolutely. So this is also one point, which is maybe then one point of the strategy of the German federation. Let's say that way that they are want to more promote the sport, which is also, as you mentioned, mainly also an outdoor sports. And then maybe over the way to promote beach water polo, for example, then to get people more in touch with the water polo sport as such, and then to get the people coming to the practice maybe as a kid or whatever. So make it more attractive. Yeah. So not necessarily meaning only the. the normal water polo game, is not really easy to understand maybe, but at the beginning to use beach water polo as a vehicle to bring people to the... So this is one of the plans or one of the items of the German Federation to get more attendance of the sport. And there is a big promotion line to follow maybe that let's say nine of 10 children

Andreas: during summer, what do they want? They want to be in water because it's too hot outside and they want to play with balls and with friends. this is water polo. It's strange. Maybe then it's also the responsibility of each club in Germany or in any other country to do this kind of work then. I would put, for example, every holiday place, would put water polo games during summer. There are thousands of tourists. from Turkey through Greece, Croatia, Italy, Spain, every country by the sea. go, Germans go, Hungarians go, Dutch, they go to the European beaches. And during the evening you take a walk and you can see, you can watch a water polo game. And just to promote it. I think it could be nice, but different point of view, of course, that during the summer you play the World Championships. So it's... difficult to organize anything during the summer. Yeah. Yeah. But, not everybody of us playing a world championship or whatever. Yeah. So maybe then also responsibility as mentioned before of the clubs and also small clubs. Yeah. So we, need more kids all over the country, regardless of any age or level of understanding of water polo. Yeah. So maybe this is also a good point. Yeah. So we have to bring this maybe, maybe more to our federation then. But when we go back here, so you mentioned at the very beginning, you start also with swimming and go right away over to the water polo area. Are there any thoughts of you or for you at the very beginning saying, okay, I want to start dreaming big right away at the beginning. So just to say, okay, I would like to attend the Olympics or I would like to attend the world championship one time in my career. So are there also at the very beginning of your career, also some kind of these kinds of thoughts saying, okay, I would like to start dreaming big? As a little boy in the swimming pool in the seventies, eighties, maybe nineties, we had dreams to become Olympic champions. Most of us in water polo, we didn't want to be Mateus or Rummenigge or Batman or Superman. We wanted to be Olympic champions in water polo.

Andreas: So the tradition is very strong. Generations by generations, we spend all our time in the swimming pools and we could see the big stars and then the next generation could see us and the next generation also and so on. So this tradition was very strong. Most of the players, have degree, dentist or lawyer or something and maybe winning some gold medals in their career. So we grew up like this. I didn't want to be a swimmer. I didn't want to be a football player. I wanted to be a water polo player. And some of the kids had the same dream. Most of the kids, let's say had the same dream. Yeah. But it's very interesting because there are really also some other opinions on that. Yeah. So, but I really like a fan of this thinking that why not start thinking or dreaming big at the very beginning. So when you need some targets for yourself, so when this is to be a world champion at some point in during your career or attending the Olympic games at least one time. So it's totally a valid target. And why not starting with these kinds of dreams saying, okay, I would like this from the very beginning. Not everybody from my team wanted to be a big champion at a very young age. Some of them just at their teenager years started to realize that they are talented and maybe it's a good path to follow. Me and some other players, we were like quite sure that this is our way to try. I didn't know what does it mean to be an Olympian, to be a part of the Olympic committee, to qualify, to do the registration, to go to the Olympic village. I didn't know anything about it. I just knew that... The biggest competition is the Olympic games and to be an Olympic champion is the biggest thing in sports. that was it. Maybe then it sounds like to me that we need or kids needs even in the past or also today some, some, yeah, let's say idols or people they are looking for, yeah, or looking up to. there any,

Andreas: persons or water polo players from Hungary in the past where you say, okay, this is my idol somewhere. I would like to play like him or with him or whatever. So what are your idols during your early ages, during your career? us, growing up in the eighties, nineties, for us, the 76 Olympic champion team was one generation to look up. And also the 52, 56, 64 Olympic champions. were two players to win three gold medals. And these big generations were inspiring for us. And it was a bit strange that the generation in front of us was the weakest in the history of the Hungary and more top also in the late eighties when West Germany had the best teams, Hungary had the worst teams those years. So when I was a little boy, the present was not so nice. The presence of the big national team was a bit, how to say, not so bright. But yeah, we had different heroes, not only water polo players. I looked up to a lot of athletes in the world, swimmers, tennis players, soccer players. I watched all the World Cups of soccer. I followed the big teams, Italy, Germany, Brazil. I knew all the players. I can, I can name the German team from Bremer to Klinsman, if you want all these generations, but I had no one hero. I had no one hero only. wanted to be like myself at a very young age. decided not to follow someone like blind love or idolize someone, but learn from everybody. Everybody. doesn't matter if it's Michael Jordan or Boris Becker or Ivan Landl or Stefan Edberg or. any kind of big stars. Marco van Basten, one of my favorites back then. Like today's boys in Hungary, they want to be Soboslayi, who played in Leipzig and then now in Liverpool. A soccer player. Most of the soccer player boys, want to be like Soboslayi. I didn't want to be one player. I wanted to be myself, but learning from everyone and loving every big athlete. yeah. And maybe when you have a chance to attend the Olympic Games, at least

Andreas: several times then you have also the chance to meet some of these people you mentioned right now. So what was it for you to attend the the Olympic Games maybe then the first time?