Manuel Andrada (January 9, 1890 – 1962) was an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

nine-goal

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

player who won the gold medal in the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...

Early life

Manuel Andrada was born in 1890 on an

estancia An estancia is a large, private plot of land used for farming or raising cattle or sheep. Estancias in the southern South American grasslands, the ''pampas'', have historically been estates used to raise livestock, such as cattle or sheep. In Pu ...

in Curumalal near

Coronel Suárez Coronel Suárez is a city in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the administrative centre for Coronel Suárez Partido. Its population is largely made up of Argentines of Volga German descent. In its surroundings, within Coronel Suárez Parti ...

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires (), officially the Buenos Aires Province (''Provincia de Buenos Aires'' ), is the largest and most populous Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of th ...

, Argentina.Horace A. Laffaye, ''Polo in Argentina: A History''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. 2014. pp. 203-205Horace A. Laffaye, ''The Polo Encyclopedia'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2004, p. 11 He worked as a horse trainer and later took up polo.Paisano Polo Club
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Polo career

He was a nine-goaler. His team won the Pacific Coast Polo Championship in 1930. The following year, in 1931, he was on the winning team of the U.S. Open Polo Championship. Moreover, his team won the

Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo The Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo (Spanish for Argentine Open Polo Championship) is an international polo championship at club level, organised every year since 1893 at the Campo Argentino de Polo of Palermo, Buenos Aires. It was known as t ...

in 1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1938 and 1939. He was part of the Argentine polo team, which won the gold medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics.DatabaseOlympics
He played both matches in the tournament, the first against Mexico and the final against Great Britain. He was the oldest sportsman to receive an Olympic gold medal according to the

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

. He was nicknamed "Paisano" (′peasant′). He has been called, "the first Argentine-born star player" by polo historian Horace Laffaye.

Personal life

He had three sons: Manuel, Oscar and Eduardo.

Death

He died in 1962 in

Laguna del Sauce Laguna del Sauce (Lagoon of the Willow) is a subtropical shallow lake and the largest water body in the Maldonado Department of Uruguay. It is located west of Punta del Este. The lake is the only freshwater ecosystem in the country classified for ...

, Córdoba Province, Argentina.

Legacy

His descendants own the Paisano Polo Club in Río Cuarto, Córdoba Province, Argentina.

References

1890 births 1968 deaths Sportspeople from Buenos Aires Province Argentine polo players Olympic gold medalists for Argentina Olympic polo players of Argentina Polo players at the 1936 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics Olympic medalists in polo {{Argentina-Olympic-medalist-stub