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Tony Azevedo Research Papers

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Standing out of the water, Team USA captain Tony Azevedo comes in at 6’1’’, 198 pounds.Just feet away in the 2 meter position, 6’7’’ behemoths battle for position in a wrestling style match. Much of the competition and his own teammates are 6’4’’, 210 pounds and above. This seems to be no matter to Tony as he is considered to be one of the greatest players ever. Going into his record 5th Olympics, it is Gold or bust. (Team USA has never won a Gold Medal in Men’s Water Polo.)

Born in Brazil, water polo has been a lifelong passion. Tony’s Dad is Ricardo Azevedo, the current Chinese Men’s water polo coach. Tony attended Long Beach Wilson High School, winning the California Interscholastic Federation all 4 years; along with being named MVP every …show more content…

A community Azevedo has also helped flourish. Water Polo has spread widely, the USAWP having 500 registered clubs. Southern California is the hub for water polo; the best high school and college teams hailing from the greater Los Angeles area(Harvard-Westlake, Mater Dei, UCLA and USC.) As more California kids are recruited by big name schools, more and more parents are signing up for water polo. USAWP has its own Olympic Development Program, a national team funnel consisting of the top youth players from around the country.

As water polo grows, the future should look bright for Team USA. Although looking forward to a very competitive 2016 Olympics, Team USA has struggled in recent years against the powerful, yet skillful Serbians, Croatians, Hungarians, Montenegrins, etc. In London 2012, the US finished 8th.

Since then, Team USA has gotten a new coach and has a much younger team. Coach Dejan Udovicic hails from Serbia and has brought a new edge to this team. Besides Azevedo the US has only 3 other real Olympic veterans- Merrill Moses, Jesse Smith, and John Mann. Most of the players are still in college with 2 just graduating high school. One of the top young players is Luca Cupido, an Italian-born natural that attended Newport Harbor High School, and currently attends Cal.

The 13 man roster for

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