Forged in water: How friendships turned schoolgirls into SA stars

Teenager Olufunke Gando, who made her world championship debut for the senior women’s water polo team in Fukuoka in Japan on Sunday, took up the sport to maintain a friendship.

The side went down to Greece 24-2 in their pool match opener on Sunday morning, though they’re looking to beat Argentina, 27-1 losers to Italy, in their final group game on Thursday. On Tuesday SA play Italy and Argentina take on Greece. 

Not only is water polo taking Gando to the highest levels of competition, but it also helped earn her a scholarship to Salem University in West Virginia, US, where she will begin studying computer science later this year.

Born and bred in Boksburg, she started playing in grade 5, agreeing to join a club to see more of a good friend.

“One of my best friends had moved schools and she told me she would start playing water polo and that would be our way of seeing each other,” said the 19-year-old.

“I was like, 'OK', and then I joined and I didn’t know what the sport was. I just knew it had a pool.”

The friend never pitched, but Gando became hooked despite being thrown into the deep end.

“Everyone there knew how to play and I didn't know it was an actual practice. The splash polo, which is for beginners, was on a completely different day. I got thrown in and I pretended I knew what I was doing.

“I didn't know anything.”

Her coach decided early that Gando would play goalkeeper.

Her perseverance won her a scholarship to Crawford Lonehill because she liked the style of the coach there.

Gando doesn’t shy away from hard work. For her, treading water is as easy as walking, and in training she once went for three hours.

But drills can be more difficult, like holding a 5kg weight and keeping elbows out of the water.

“My best was one minute and two seconds.”

Another session involved treading — not swimming — ten 25m lengths while holding chairs.

“You keep telling yourself ‘I love the sport’,” Gando said with a laugh.

The team vice-captain, Shakira January, also found herself getting swept into the sport because of friends .

The second-year psychology student at the University of Pretoria learnt to swim at the end of grade 6 and gave it a go as a sport.

When she started high school at Randpark in Randburg she decided to try her hand at water polo.

“What really kept me first was my friends,” said January, playing at her second world championships.

“Obviously I made new friends and there were friends from primary school and we did it for the first term.

“I was doing polo because of friends and soon after that I fell in love with water polo and swimming went out,” said the 20-year-old, who won a scholarship to St Stithians towards the end of high school.

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