A local water polo athlete had a memorable experience in Italy last month.
Taeghen Hack, a member for Team Saskatchewan Water Polo and a former member of the Estevan Sharks water polo club, travelled to Bogliasco, Italy, from Feb. 12 to 22 for a 10-day training camp with the most established water polo club in Italy, Rari Nantes (RN) Bogliasco, which was founded in 1951.
During the week, RN Bogliasco hosted the Saskatchewan U19 men’s and women’s players and the U.S. men’s and women’s U19 teams.
The European training camps have played a huge impact in the development of Team Sask players over the last several years, as they get to train and compete against some of the best players on the world water polo circuit.
Head coach Cyril Dorgigne from Water Polo Sask, and with assistance from Water polo Canada, has been instrumental in establishing, maintaining and fostering connections to ever-increasing talented clubs worldwide.
The town they travelled to this year is Boglisaso and it is a suburb of the metropolitan city of Genoa on the Ligurian sea coast. Although the population is small at 4,500, it has a rich history of accomplishments, and its 1A ranking in European water polo make it a major contender in the sport.
Taeghen Hack, 15, has been a member of Team Sask. for the past five years and currently competes on the under-16 and under-19 teams in the National Championship League (NCL). She has proven herself in tough competitions, including winning silver at the 2016 Western NCL championships in Surrey, B.C., and silver at the national championships in Montreal. In 2017 the team took gold at Westerns and fourth place at nationals, both hosted in Calgary.
