John's Story
A decade after making his international senior team debut, John “Johnno” Cotterill made his second Olympic appearance in Rio. Cotterill was one of Australia’s top scorers of the 2016 Olympic competition with a total of eight goals to his name.
The Aussies lined up against the Brazilian hosts in their opening Game of the 2016 Olympics, but the roars from the home crowd proved to be too much as the boys narrowly went down 8-7. In their second pool game, the Aussies bounced back to secure a 9-9 draw with powerhouse Hungary, before they recorded an 8-6 win over Japan in game three.
Determined to try and secure Australia’s first ever men’s water polo medal, the Aussies then lined up with eventual Gold medallists Serbia and after a hard fought battle went down 10-8. Hungary defeating Brazil resulted in a fifth place finish in their pool for the green and gold, meaning the Aussies would not progress to the quarter-final stage.
Cotterill won silver at the 2003 Australian Youth Olympic Festival before making his international debut in 2006. The following year he made his World Championships debut on home soil on Melbourne.
He won bronze medals at the World League Finals in 2007 and 2008. A year later he was part of the Australian team that won the gold medal by defeating the host nation at the 2009 World University Games in Serbia.
Cotterill moved to Europe for five years to play water polo professionally, living in Barcelona, Chios and Athens. He returned home from Greece in 2012 and was selected to compete at his first Olympic Games in London, where Australia placed seventh after going down 8-11 to Serbia.
Cotterill has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales and is currently working as a Product Manager at Westpac Bank in Sydney.
