While the Monaco Grand Prix was taking place another important Championship was underway hundreds of kilometres away in Strasbourg. For the first time in its history Monaco are Champions of France in Water Polo with its Under 15s team. The team is unique as under the rules at that age the girls can play with the boys. And Monaco had on its team a young girl prodigy who has already achieved amazing results. Zianna Wright has also been crowned champion with the French U17 women’s team of Nice – and at only 14 years old.
Back to Monaco’s U15 journey to their victorious Championship where Zianna proved her mettle by immediately scoring a goal in the first match. Facing Douai, the team won the match 14-5 before conceding a draw against Pays d’Aix 9-9 and winning against hosts Strasbourg 11-5.
Coach Manuel Laversanne must be delighted with all the players as they regularly train at the Monaco club. They all started five to six years ago in the U9 and U11 section with Sébastien Dervieux another excellent coach for the youngsters. Manuel Laversanne has been the coach of the U13 and U15 for four seasons now.
Of course there are more challenges on the horizon so the taste of victory is important to motivate them for the next championships in different age categories.
About half of them will take part in the U17 honour finals in Monaco on June 17th and 18th.
It’s good that the spotlight is on Water Polo a little because so often football, basketball and rugby get the lion’s share of attention in our region.
Not so in Croatia, where water polo is king. Monaco teams have visited there and seen that they can compete internationally with the best.
If you have not watched Water polo you will see how intense a competitive sport it is. Two teams of seven players each compete, needing extraordinary skill to coordinate and score goals in the water. The game consists of four quarters in which the focus is on throwing the ball into the opposing team’s goal. The team with the most goals at the end of the game wins the match… and Monaco Under 15s are proving themselves formidable at that!
