Gauteng water polo tournament to be staged
The first-ever Gauteng Invitational water polo tournament is scheduled to take place at St David’s Marist Inanda, Johannesburg from April 13 to 17.
Tournament organiser, Rui Morais, said, “Water polo enjoys great support at school level, but once players matriculate they tend to drift away from the sport. There is very little to keep seniors involved in water polo.”
This was the dynamic that drove the Gauteng Water Polo Board to establish the Gauteng Invitational.
Participants in the maiden tournament come from four provinces, Gauteng (including the Soweto water polo club), Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, with international teams coming from Portugal and Mozambique.
“At the moment invitations have been sent to 16 men’s teams and eight women’s teams to play. I have also had requests from teams in Hungary, Brazil, Cuba, UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic and Australia.
Unfortunately, we don’t have space to accommodate any more teams, but it’s encouraging to see that people want to participate. The fact that we have teams wanting to play tells me this event has traction going forward.”
Covid-19 travel restrictions have been a sticking point for many of the international teams in 2022.
“One of the aims of the tournament is to expose our teams to international competition so that they can gain experience and build relationships. We have Portugal’s top two teams, Vitoria Sports Club and Clube Fluvial Portuense, coming to play, which will go a long way towards helping us to achieve this goal,” he said.
“We also have two women, Olympians Nicola MacLeod and Shaqira January, going to Portugal for three months to play for SL Benfica, which, with around 260 000 members, is one of the largest sports clubs in the world.”
Matches will be played at St David’s Marist Inanda, Johannesburg, while training and accommodation for the Portuguese and Mozambican teams will be hosted by Reddam Helderfontein.
