#2020InFocus - Alumni Tom Hoad

As our Olympic Celebrations draw to a close, we caught up with water polo legend Tom Hoad.

Hoad was selected to play at four Olympic Games, Rome 1960, Tokyo 1964, Mexico 1968 and Munich 1972, before going on to coach the national team to an additional four Olympics from 1976 to 1988.

“At the Tokyo Olympic Games, we were in a group of four with Yugoslavia, East Germany and Belgium,” Hoad said.

“But Belgium failed to show up, and we lost to Yugoslavia and East Germany.

“Out of the Tokyo result we spoke to Australian Swimming, who at the time were our masters, and we arranged to go to Europe to train and play.

“It was exactly what we hadn’t done in the four years preceding Tokyo. So we went to Europe that year (1965) for three months and established good connections.

“We didn’t go back in 1966, but we did go in 1967 and 1968 prior to the Mexico Olympics.The Mexico 1966 Olympic Games proved to be controversial for Hoad and his Australian team mates, after a disagreement between FINA and the IOC that the Australians should not have been playing.

“We were in the draw because FINA were in charge of the competition and we were set to face Russia in the first game.

“We lined up and were on the blocks ready to face Russia and the IOC delegate from Russia came down and said to the Russian team ‘If you play against these guys, you will be disqualified’.

“And we said ‘well under those circumstances, we wouldn’t expect you to play’ and that was the result.

“It was colossally disappointing for us because we had a good team and we had prepared, which we had never done before in previous Olympic campaigns.

“We never had the chance to play against an international team until the Tokyo Olympics (1964).

“It was a very pleasant trip and a very funny trip – we had some very interesting characters with us.

“We had improved, there was no question about that, because we’d had the competition in training that we’d never had before.

“But not being able to play in Mexico was certainly a disappointing end to that trip.

The Munich 1972 Olympic Games saw the Australians suffer another disappointing defeat, not making it past the group stages after drawing to Hungary and losing to Greece.

In 1975 Hoad then made the transition from playing to coaching, where he saw the team through a period of improvement in the lead up to the Montreal Olympic Games.

“We went from 11th in Montreal, then we beat Italy in Moscow (1980) for 7th place,” Hoad said.

“We improved bit by bit, and gradually, then in Los Angeles (1984) we drew for fourth place but on countback averages we were determined to be fifth.

“We’d made progress over the period of about 10 years by keeping the basic core of the team together – with players like Chris Wybrow, Charlie Turner, Peter Montgomery and other good team players.

FINA Magazine’s Russell McKinnon published an in-depth feature with Tom Hoad - click here

Since his time as a player and coach of the national team, Hoad continues to remain heavily involved in the sport, at an international, national, state and local level.

He currently serves as the Chariman of Water Polo Western Australia, coaches and mentors players at his beloved Melville Water Polo Club, and is part of Water Polo Australia’s National Selection Panel.