Blacks inspired Stingrays’ success
SUCCESS can be a great catalyst for inspiration and those who have travelled the path of achievement will attest to the fact they were inspired by others who would have walked the road to accomplishment.
The Black family created a wave of success in tennis’ beginning in the mid-90s and changed a sport that was considered elite, leading to construction of courts in highdensity suburbs, areas that were entranced by football.
Many were inspired by Byron, Wayne and later Cara, to take up the sport with several black players emerging to dominate in tennis.
The three siblings achieved phenomenal success on the world stage catapulting Zimbabwe high up in the sport’s corridors.
Watching the success of the Black family then, was Edmore Cyprianos, awestruck at how Don and Velia Black had managed to turn their children into sporting stars after having built a tennis court at their Highlands home in Harare.
Years later, with Cyprianos’ eldest son, Andressious just turning around 10 and beginning to take sport seriously he considered setting up a tennis court at home and enlisting him in the sport.
“The success the Black family achieved was always at the back of my mind, it inspired me, I naturally think it was a matter of time before I explored that route but a near drowning incident in Hwange in 2001 during a vacation saw my kids take up swimming lessons at Alice Aquatics as a survival skill but a few months down the line I was informed they were ready for club swimming hence we took that route.
“We had challenges setting up a tennis court at home so we later opted for a pool,” said Cyprianos, who now runs Stingrays Swimming Academy.
He said as his children took up the sport, he had keen interest in their achievements and ensure he would be available for every training session and attended all the competitions they took part in.
The need to ensure Andressious represents the country at the 2014 Region 5 Youth Games and is also in good shape to compete, saw Cyprianos decide to build a heated swimming pool at home, which would allow him to train throughout the year.
He says in hindsight it is something they should have done long back but is still happy they are now reaping the rewards of setting up the pool.
“It was not an easy period as I tried to borrow funds from banks but was turned down, but I had already made up my mind then so I scrounged around and managed to build it.
“We realised South Africans were training throughout the year, 11 months to be precise but we only had seven months in the pool in a year so that was disadvantaging us a lot but looking at the current crop you will realise we are reaping the rewards as they are going to SA competitions and do not only make the finals but also have podium finishes,” added Cyprianos.
He gave examples of his youngest son, Denilson who is coming up with times way ahead of his elder brothers, Andre and Brendon when they were the same age, with Tich Makaya, another rising star who has been breaking records and making waves despite being three years into the sport.
Andressious and Brendon have managed to secure scholarships to American universities on tennis.
Cyprianos (50) believes one should leave a lasting impression in life and he realised the chance to make a formidable impact would be to create something that would benefit not only his children but the wider community and in 2017 decided to set up Stingrays, together with his wife, Nokuthula.
The impact was immediate as the club managed to make second place in the Matabeleland Championships last year and this year. Stingrays clinched the points championship with a wide margin of points.
“We put in the work at training, there is focus, we know why we are going into the pool. Keeping focus on our aims has enabled us to achieve all that we are doing now, we are also glad 14 of our 17 swimmers who took part in the championships managed to make it into the Matabeleland team that will be taking part in the senior championships next month,” he said.
After dominating the Matabeleland meet the next target is to do well at the junior nationals while notching up SA juniors time although ultimately making it to the Olympics remains their main target.
The award-winning businessman, who runs Cypriano Electrical, managed to attain a Level 2 coaching certificate recently. Andressious has joined him in coaching, after completing his degree together with Louis Lee.