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Babsie Podestá

Maltese water polo player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2024
Entity authorityQ76295464 ↗
Source-derived summary

Arthur (sive Babsie) Podestá (6 March 1912 – 6 June 2004) was a Maltese water polo player. He competed in the men's tournament at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Career

Arthur Podestá participated in Water polo, representing Malta, at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin (these were his only Olympic Games).

Podestá's first match was against Great Britain, a team that was not only superior but also exceptionally tough. Malta suffered a 2-8 defeat, with goals scored by Podestá and Sydney Scott. In their second match against Hungary, Malta found themselves trailing 9-0 by halftime, and to make matters worse, Podestá did not play due to injury. The match ended in a 12-0 loss. In their final match against Yugoslavia, Malta was defeated 7-0.

During their time in Germany, the Malta Olympic team played several friendly matches, drawing 3-3 with Switzerland, losing 1-8 to Germany, and securing victories against Plauren Club (10-3), SV Berg (8-1), and Magdeburg (7-2).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Babsie Podestá” is maltese water polo player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Babsie, Podestá and Maltese, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912, 2004, 1936—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1912-03-06. For this dossier, Babsie, Podestá and Maltese is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “maltese water polo player” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q76295464. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 2004 and 1936.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Babsie Podestá”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Babsie Podestá primary sources, Babsie Podestá archive and Babsie research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Babsie Podestá”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Babsie Podestá” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.