Tatjana Smith put the cherry on the multilayered gateau that South African sports fans enjoyed throughout 2024.
That she arguably eclipsed even the Springboks — the world’s rugby champions from 2023 who maintained their No 1 world ranking in 2024 — illustrates the significance of her achievement.
Smith became the first South African to win Olympic gold medals at different Games in real time when she took the 100m breaststroke crown in Paris in July. And she did it in gladiatorial style, delivering a second-lap surge after turning in fourth place with half the race gone.
Caster Semenya is the only other athlete to have golds from two Olympics, but her 800m gong from London 2012 was awarded only after she’d won at Rio 2016, her silver being upgraded in the wake of the doping disqualification of 2012 winner Mariya Savinova of Russia.
Smith won both her golds in the heat of battle, and when she took the 200m breaststroke silver a few days later she became the country’s most decorated Olympian, with two golds and two silvers.
The Paris showpiece, at which Team South Africa secured an impressive six-pack of gongs, proved significant for the country in other ways too.
Akani Simbine won what could rank as the most deserved medal in local sports history when he crossed the line second in the men’s 4x100m relay. He went into the Games having made the 100m final at three world championships and two Olympics, finishing fourth twice and fifth on three occasions.
Simbine ended fourth by one-hundredth of a second in the blue riband sprint in Paris, the most closely contested by the entire field of any Olympic 100m race. In the relay final Simbine produced a world-class display, taking the baton in fifth place and storming down the home straight in 8.78sec, the third-fastest anchor leg in history behind Jamaicans Usain Bolt (8.65) and Asafa Powell (8.68).
Alan Hatherly picked up South Africa’s first Olympic cycling medal since Melbourne 1956, bagging bronze in a scintillating men’s mountain bike race behind British star Tom Pidcock and Frenchman Victor Koretzky. Hatherly ramped it up to win the world championships a month later, pushing both rivals into the minor placings.
Jo-Ané van Dyk stunned the women’s javelin field in Paris with her silver. It was a performance that underlined the skill of Terseus Liebenberg, probably South Africa’s greatest active athletics coach. He also mentored Marius Corbett to a first world title in 1997 as well as Sunette Viljoen to the 2016 Olympic silver medal and two world championship medals.
Propped up by athlete Mpumelelo Mhlongo, the Paralympians landed six medals, but that was their worst haul to date. Kgothatso Montjane won the wheelchair women’s doubles at Wimbledon.
That she arguably eclipsed even the Springboks illustrates the significance of her achievement
Rassie Erasmus, Siya Kolisi and the men in green and gold delivered another memorable feast for fans. The shared home series against Ireland was soon forgotten as they demolished Argentina 48-7 at Mbombela to secure the Rugby Championship and saw off Scotland, England and Wales to go unbeaten on their end-of-year tour for the first time in a decade.
The old stalwarts fired, like repeat World Rugby player of the year Pieter-Steph du Toit, Eben Etzebeth, who became the most capped Bok on record, and winger Cheslin Kolbe. And flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu showed there’s plenty of young blood coming through for 2027. In a bizarre decision, Erasmus was snubbed for the international coach of the year award, which went instead to relative unknown Jérôme Daret, coach of France’s Olympic-winning sevens team.
The Proteas reached their first World Cup cricket final, in the T20 format, where Heinrich Klaasen, Tristan Stubbs and David Miller nearly pulled it off against mighty India. But the team stumbled at the death, unable to handle the wiles of the world’s best bowler, Jasprit Bumrah.
In the five-day arena Kagiso Rabada joined the likes of Dale Steyn and Allan Donald in the 300-wicket club, and the Proteas won a two-Test series against Sri Lanka to set up a likely World Test Championship final.
The women cricketers also got through to another T20 final, but they were outclassed from the start by a polished New Zealand team.
Even Bafana Bafana gave the country much to shout about, finishing third at the Africa Cup of Nations. Goalkeeper Ronwen Williams pulled off four saves in the penalty shoot-out of the quarterfinal against Cape Verde. The team have already qualified for the next continental tournament and are still in the hunt for 2026 World Cup qualification.
In the non-Olympic individual sports, mixed martial arts fighter Dricus du Plessis dominated, becoming the first South African to win an Ultimate Fighting Championship title, dethroning Sean Strickland for the middleweight belt and defending it by forcing Israel Adesanya to tap out in the fourth round.
In boxing, Kevin Lerena was handed the World Boxing Council’s bridgerweight crown after champion Lawrence Okolie vacated it to move to heavyweight, making Lerena only the third South African to hold the Mexico-based organisation’s green belt, after Thulani “Sugar Boy” Malinga and Dingaan Thobela.
Sivenathi Nontshinga regained the International Boxing Federation’s junior-flyweight title by stopping Mexican Adrian Curiel in the 10th round of their rematch in Oaxaca in February, becoming the first South African to reclaim a championship in a rematch. But he lost it again in his next outing, getting counted out against Masamichi Yabuki in Japan.
Phumelela Cafu had a better time of it in Japan, scoring a critical knockdown on his way to a split decision win over Kosei Tanaka for the World Boxing Organisation’s junior-bantamweight title.
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