“It Happened – Ratko Rudić premiered recently at the OLY House Film Festival in Paris. This is the true life story of Hall of Fame coach Ratko Rudic, produced by Dejan Aćimović.
The 115-minute film tells about the journey of the most trophy-winning water polo expert in the world, from his beginnings as a player in Zadar to his fantastic coaching results. He played his first matches for Zadar, won his first trophy under the cap of Split’s Jadran, and also marked a significant part of the Belgrade Partizan era. Rudić made 297 appearances for the water polo national team of Yugoslavia and won seventeen club titles and nine national team medals.
However, as a coach whose career spanned 39 years, he was even more successful. He won as many as 39 medals, 16 of which were gold, which makes him the best Croatian coach of all time in all sports. He is also the second most successful coach in the history of all sports after Brazilian volleyball specialist Bernardo Roche de Rezende, who has 52 medals.
At the Olympic Games, world and European championships, he won 16 medals, ten of which were gold. He won medals leading five different national teams – Yugoslavia, Italy, USA, Croatia and Brazil. He is the only water polo coach who won four Olympic gold medals and the only one who won a medal at the Olympic Games four times in a row, three times in a row.
With Yugoslavia, he won two Olympic and one world gold. He was an Olympic winner, European and world champion with Italy. He repeated the same with the Croatian national team. He led the USA national team to gold at the Pan American Games, and Brazil to silver at the same competition.
Currently the film is viewable online on the e-OLY House platform, which is open only to Olympians. An english language and USA release date will be announced in the future.