Paul Radmilovic, in 1909 (WIKIPEDIA).
We close out the week with an Olympic hero you may not know yet, who pioneered success in swimming: Paul Radmilovic.
On March 5, 1886, Paolo Francesco Radmilovic was born in Cardiff, Wales. His father He is a Croatian from Dubrovnik who emigrated to England in the 1960s and ran a pub in the Welsh capital. His mother, for her part, was from Wales but the daughter of Irish immigrants.
He started practicing water polo at a very young age and by 1901 he was already playing with the Welsh national team. In 1907 he achieved his first swimming victory: victory in 5 mile run on the waters of the River Thames.
The following year he made his debut at the London Olympics, being part of the British water polo team, which won a gold medal. In that event, Radmilovic also competed in the 4×200, which again featured Great Britain he took the gold, and in three other individual swimming tests, it was unsuccessful in this case.
Four years later, at the Stockholm Olympics, the British water polo team repeated their feat and won gold again, with Radmilovic among them. The fourth Olympic gold medal of his career was won at the 1920 Antwerp Games, again at a water polo competition. In this last final, a tense match against hosts Belgium, Radmilovic scored the decisive goal.
Paul Radmilovic’s Olympic career also saw him participate in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics (when he was already 42 years old), becoming the first water polo player to participate. five Olympics and one of ten people to have won three gold medals in the sport.
Until 2000 British athletes cwith more consecutive Olympic gold medals (surpassed by Sir Steve Redgrave).
Apart from his Olympic career, Paul Radmilovic does not stop swimming. He settled in the coastal town of Weston-super-Mare, where he managed a hotel, a task that did not deter him swimming at least 400 meters every day, a habit he maintained until he was 78 years old.
Radmilovic died in Weston-super-Mare in 1968, aged 82. His son continues to run his hotel, where their trophies are displayed. He is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame. There is a plaque in his honor at the Cardiff International Swimming Pool and on the facade of his Weston hotel, the Imperial.
I hope you like the article. We’ll be back next week.
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