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1899 The first polo field was laid out at St. Moritz-Bad, after some British cavalry officers had played polo as part of their military training and as a leisure activity. This makes St. Moritz one of the cradles of polo in continental Europe. Shortly before the first-ever Alpine polo match was due to be held, the cavalry officers received orders to sail for South Africa, where the Boer War was being fought. Interest in the sporot of polo ebbed in St. Moritz and no further games were played.
1959 The St. Moritz Polo Club was founded under the chairmanship of Dr. P. R. Berry. The founder members included Andrea Badrutt, Peter Kaspar and Colonel Lodi, from Rome.
1960 – 1964 A major international polo tournament was held in St. Moritz each summer, involving teams from Argentina, Italy, the USA and England. The event attracted 3000 – 4000 spectators each year, from the Engadine and well beyond. The only player from the Engadine at this time – in fact from the whole of Switzerland – was Christian Mathis.
1965 The polo pitch was converted to an altitude training centre for athletes competing in the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City. For the time being, this put an end to polo in St. Moritz.
1978 Engadine-born Reto G. Gaudenzi, then working in Spain, founded a St. Moritz polo team which competed with great success in many international tournaments.
1983 Dr. P. R. Berry, the founder and chairman of the St. Moritz Polo Club, died. In his later years, he had initiated a reorganization of the polo club. Not long after his death, the St. Moritz Polo Club was reformed under a new Chairman, Christian Mathis. At the same time, the St. Moritz Polo Club founded the Swiss Polo Association (SPA). An all-Swiss team, including Reto Gaudenzi, Gianni Berry, Nikki Hahn and Umberto Gasche, played in Switzerland’s first official international fixture against Spain, in Barcelona.
1984 The constitutive meeting of the new St. Moritz Polo Club was held on 7 January. The same year, the Swiss team played in its second international match, this time in the world-famous venue of Windsor, England, against an English line-up. The St. Moritz team was now playing everywhere except the Engadine. This was a conscious choice on the part of Reto G. Gaudenzi and led to his idea, initially dubbed crazy, of playing polo on the frozen lake. A year later, the first match was played on ice. back >>1985–1994 |
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