1907 — The South African cricket team is bowled out for 75 on the third and final day of the second Test at Leeds as England win by 53 runs, putting the home side 1-0 up in the. three-match series.
1928 — George Weightman-Smith equals the 14.8 sec 110m hurdles world record in the heats at the Amsterdam Olympics and then later that day in the semifinals he clocks 14.6 to break the mark. He ended fifth in the final the following day.
1951 — With no play possible on the final day, the fourth Test between South Africa and England in Leeds ends in a draw with the home team leading the five-match series 2-1.
1952 — Joan Harrison, just 16, wins South Africa’s first Olympic swimming gold as she finishes first in the women’s 100m backstroke at the Helsinki Games. She clocked 1 min 14.3 sec to beat Holland’s Geertje Wielema by two-tenths of a second. Luckily for the South African, Wielema produced her 1:13.8 Olympic record in the heats. Three days earlier Harrison ended fourth in the 100m freestyle in 1:07.01, but had she repeated the 1:06.5 she’d managed in the heats, she might have won gold. Hungarian Judit Temes swam a 1:05.5 Olympic record in the heats, but ended up taking the bronze. South Africa won 10 medals in all at those Games, but the only two golds came from the women, Harrison and high-jumper Esther Brand. Harrison remains South Africa’s youngest Olympic champion at 16 years, eight months and two days.
1952 — Meanwhile, Raymond Robinson picked up two Olympic cycling medals on the same day at the Helsinki Games. First he ended third in the track time trial behind Australian Russell Mockridge and Italy’s Marino Morettini. Then he and Thomas Shardelow took silver in the men’s 2,000m tandem at the Helsinki Games. They finished behind Mockridge and his Australian partner Lionel Cox and ahead of Italians Cesare Pinarello and Antonio Maspes, who went on to win several world championship titles.
1965 — The Springboks suffer a sixth consecutive defeat, being beaten 3-6 in their opening Test against New Zealand in Wellington. Wing Bill Birtwistle and flank Kel Tremain scored unconverted tries for the home side. South Africa’s only points came from a drop by flyhalf Keith Oxlee.
1971 — South Africa score three tries without reply as they beat Australia 14-6 in Brisbane in the second Test to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. Flyhalf Piet Visagie dotted down twice and scrumhalf Joggie Viljoen once, with fullback Ian McCallum converting one and adding a penalty. Australia managed only a penalty and a drop through fullback Arthur McGill.
1974 — UCT and UWC compete in the first mixed-race intervarsity at the Groote Schuur campus, with teams competing in rugby, soccer, netball and tennis in windy and wet conditions. The Rand Daily Mail reported that they avoided contravening the Group Areas Act because the event was considered private. Some members of the University of the Western Cape rejected the University of Cape Town invitation, including the table tennis club, while the UWC hockey team withdrew because their UCT counterparts did not agree to publicly reject apartheid in sport.
1987 — Brian Mitchell makes the second defence of his WBA junior-lightweight title, stopping Rocky Fernandez of Panama in the 14th round in Panama City.
1993 — The Springboks score three tries without reply as they beat Australia 19-12 in Sydney in the opening Test of a three-match series. Wing James Small dotted down twice and centre Pieter Muller once, with fullback Theo van Rensburg converting two of them. Wallaby fullback Marty Roebuck landed four penalties. But the South Africans will go on to lose the series.
1996 — Hezekiel Sepeng becomes the first black South African to win an Olympic medal when he takes silver in what was the fastest 800m race at the time with four men dipping under 1 min 43 sec. Sepeng, not the best tactical runner, was boxed in early on, and in the end his charge came too late to catch Vebjorn Rodal of Norway, the winner in a 1:42.58 Olympic record. Sepeng crossed the line in 1:42.74, also below the old Games record. Had the race been 10m longer, he would have surely caught Rodal.
2003 — Makhaya Ntini takes five wickets as South Africa bowl out England for 173 in the second Test at Lord’s.
2004 — Shaun Rubenstein takes bronze in the K1 marathon at the world championships in Bergen, Norway, clocking 2 hr 43 min 30 sec behind Spaniard Manuel Busto Fernandez (2:42:03) and Michael Kongsgaard of Denmark (2:42:04).
2004 — The Springboks lose their second Tri-Nations match on the trot, going down 26-30 against Australia in Perth after losing to the All Blacks a week earlier. Jean de Villiers on the wing, replacement Gaffie du Toit and flyhalf Jaco van der Westhuyzen scored tries for the Boks, who went on to win the tournament.
2006 — The Proteas are bowled out for 434 as they lose the first Test in Colombo to Sri Lanka by an innings and 153 runs.
2007 — The South African women’s cricket team score their first and so far only Test win, beating the Netherlands by 159 runs in a one-off match in Rotterdam. The visitors, scoring 232 and 85/2 declared, bowled out the hosts for 108 and 50, with Sunette Loubser taking 5/37 in the first innings and 8/59 for the match. For the Dutch, it was the first and so far only Test they’ve played.
2008 — Ashlyn Kilowan takes 3/6 and Charlize van der Westhuizen 3/7 as the South African women bowl out Ireland for 63 on their way to winning a one-off ODI at Crowthorne by 10 wickets.
2010 — Simphiwe Nongqayi is dethroned as IBF junior-bantamweight champion, getting stopped in the sixth round by Mexico’s Albert Rosas in Tepic, Mexico. It was his second defence.
2012 — Chad le Clos produces the upset of the London Olympics when he denies defending champion Michael Phelps a hat-trick of Games 200m butterfly gold medals. The South African touched the wall at the end of his stroke to touch in 1 min 52.96 sec, just five-hundredths of a second ahead of the American legend who had led the race until then.
2013 — Olympic champions Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh win gold medals for South Africa at the world championships in Barcelona, with Giulio Zorzi adding a bronze. Le Clos cleaned up in the 200m butterfly, racing to victory in 1 min 54.32 sec to comfortably beat Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski (1:55.01). Van der Burgh won gold in the 50m breaststroke by one-hundredth of a second, touching in 26.77 to edge out Australian Christian Sprenger. Van der Burgh’s training partner, Zorzi, was third in 27.04.
2013 — AB de Villiers offers the only resistance, scoring 51 as South Africa collapse to 179 to lose the fifth and final ODI to Sri Lanka in Colombo by 128 runs and go down 1-4 in the series.
2017 — Dean Elgar, returning to the crease on 72, goes on to score 136, but it’s not enough as the Proteas are bowled out for 252 to lose the third Test against England at the Oval by 239 runs, giving the home side a 2-1 lead in the four-match series.
2021 — The Springboks down the British Lions 27-9 in the second Test at Cape Town Stadium to level the three-match series at 1-1. Makazole Mapimpi and Lukhanyo Am scored tries with flyhalf Handré Pollard landing one conversion and five penalties.
2022 — Tabraiz Shamsi takes 5/24 as the Proteas, on 191/5, beat England by 90 runs in the third and final T20 in Southampton to take the series 2-1. Reeza Hendricks scored 70 and Aiden Markram an unbeaten 51.
2023 — Nichole Taljaard scores 24 points as the Proteas beat Trinidad and Tobago 69-28 in their Netball World Cup group G encounter in Cape Town.
2024 — Tatjana Smith becomes South Africa’s most decorated Olympian as she takes silver in the women’s 200m breaststroke at the Paris Games for a career haul of two gold and two silver. Smith, the defending champion, was unable reproduce the 2 min 19.01 sec effort from the national championships in April and touched second in 2:19.60 behind American Kate Douglas, the winner in 2:19.24. Smith’s medal tally equalled Chad le Clos’s four, but her two gold outweighed his one gold and three silver.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.