1891 — South Africa field a rugby team for the first time, taking on the British Isles in Port Elizabeth in the opening Test of their three-match series. The visitors scored two tries (one point each) and one conversion (two points) to win 4-0.
1896 — South Africa take on Britain in the first Test of only their second rugby series in history, and fail to score a point as they go down 0-8 (two three-point tries and a conversion) in Port Elizabeth. It’s South Africa’s fourth Test, fourth defeat and the fourth time they failed to score a point.
1929 — The South African cricket team are hammered by England by an innings and 32 runs in the fourth Test in Manchester, going down 0-2 in the five-match series. They were unable to contain spinner Tich Freeman, who took a fifer in each innings to finish the contest with a career-best 12/171.
1935 — South Africa and England draw the fourth Test in Manchester with the home side leading the five-match series 1-0.
1951 — Athol Rowan, brother of double centurion Eric a few days earlier, finishes with five wickets as South Africa bowl out England for 500 on the penultimate day of the fourth Test in Leeds.
1978 — Kork Ballington retains his lead in the 350cc and 250cc classes as he wins both events at the Finnish motorcycling grand prix in Imatra. He was way in front in the 350cc class, having won four of the seven events, with two second places. But he was only four points in front of Australian Gregg Hansford in the more competitive 250cc category.
1997 — South African welterweight champion Peter Malinga knocks out Alessandro Duran of Italy in the third round to win the marginal WBU welterweight title in Agrigento, Sicily.
2000 — Lance Klusener scores an unbeaten 118 as South Africa are dismissed for 253 by Sri Lanka on the opening day of the second Test in Kandy.
2004 — Cyclist JP van Zyl wins his second track world championship medal, taking bronze in the men’s scratch at the Manchester velodrome to add to the keirin silver he had won in 1997.
2005 — Roland Schoeman wins the 50m freestyle world championship gold in the second-fastest time of all time in Montreal. His 21.69 sec was five-hundredths of a second slower than Alexander Popov’s world record and both times remained unchallenged until the controversial full-body suits were introduced in 2008.
2005 — The Springboks beat Australia 22-16 in a Tri-Nations match at Loftus Versfeld. At one try, one conversion and three penalties apiece, the difference were the dropped goals kicked by fullback Percy Montgomery and flyhalf Andre Pretorius. It was the first time in seven years that South Africa had beaten Australia twice in a season.
2011 — The All Blacks run in six tries to beat the Springboks 40-7 in a Tri-Nations match in Wellington. Captain John Smit scored South Africa’s only try.
2011 — Gerhard Zandberg wins his fourth world championship 50m backstroke medal, taking bronze in Shanghai in 24.66. Briton Liam Tancock won in 24.50 with Frenchman Camille Lacourt second in 24.57.
2021 — Tatjana Schoenmaker breaks the world record as she wins the 200m breaststroke gold at the Tokyo Games for her second medal of the showpiece. She touched in 2 min 18.95 sec, nearly a second ahead of American Lilly King in 2:19.92 and 16-hundredths of a second inside the world record set by Rikke Pedersen of Denmark in 2013. Schoenmaker’s training partner, Kaylene Corbett, was fifth in 2:22.06. The open-air Tuks pool where they trained was hit by the return of load-shedding a few weeks before they flew out, causing the water temperature to drop too low in midwinter. A generator was hired at a huge cost to keep the heater going.
2022 — Bafana Bafana play to a 0-0 draw against Comoros at Dobsonville Stadium to win their home-away African Nations Championship (Chan) qualifier 1-0 on aggregate.
2022 — Chloe Tryon hits 39 off 17 as the South African women are limited to 154/7 to lose their Commonwealth Games T20 against England in Birmingham by 13 runs.
2023 — The Proteas are beaten 49-67 in their final Netball World Cup group match by Jamaica in Cape Town, with the biggest damage being done in the third quarter, taken 20-3 by the islanders.
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