“I would love to be part of Australia’s first gold medal winning men’s water polo team,” says Johnno Cotterill of a dream that is still achievable.
Now living in Spain and playing professionally for Sant Andreu in Barcelona, Cotterill is renowned as one of Australia’s top men’s water polo players.
Cotterill competed at last year’s World Championships in Melbourne as part of the national team, thriving on the pressure of elite level competition and continually learning how to improve his own game.
“The World Championships were a great opportunity, particularly playing in front of an Australian crowd”.
“They allowed me to see just how tough it is against the world’s top nations and it’s a level that I want to be competing at for a while,” Cotterill said of his experience.
In 2008 Cotterill was part of the team that won bronze at the World League finals in Italy, as well as winning a gold medal in the ‘Good Luck’ Beijing event, a pre-cursor to the Olympic Games.
In July 2008 Cotterill discovered that he had not been included in the Olympic team to compete in Beijing, however, he is determined to use this set back as motivation over the next four years in the lead up to the London Games in the hope that he can fulfill his Olympic dream.
“Missing out on the Olympic team was tough, but that’s the nature of sport”.
“You always want to send the strongest team to the Olympics and the decision just gives me more motivation to keep going,” Cotterill said of the heartbreak of missing out on Beijing.
Cotterill believes the Australian team is making inroads and come London the team will be gunning for a top four spot, a substantial improvement on this year’s eighth place finish, but this youngster isn’t looking too far ahead.
“It’s all up to me from here. I’ll be taking it one step at a time.”