World cup winner Springbok lock Hannes Strydom dies in car accident
Another one of the famous 1995 Springbok team that became South Africa's first World Cup champions, has tragically passed away this past weekend.
The Springbok rugby team of 1995, the first South Africans to win the World Cup trophy, lost a fifth member on Sunday evening when the lock, Hannes Strydom, died in a car accident.
He was 58 years old.
Witbank News reported that the accident happened at around 21:56 on Sunday night on the N4 between the Kromdraai and Balmoral.
According to reports, he was travelling back to Pretoria from Mpumalanga on the N4. The accident apparently happened in the vicinity of Witbank (eMalahleni), but no further details about it are known at this stage.
Strydom’s family confirmed that he had passed away.
Strydom grew up in the Eastern Cape, where he matriculated at Pearson High School in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth).
After school, he studied pharmacy at the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE). It was also as a student that he made a name for himself as a rugby player and played 35 times for the Eastern Province (EP).
After his studies, he went to Pretoria to do his military service and during this time (1989-1992) he played 23 times as a lock for the Blue Bulls.
In 1993, he, like many others, followed the Pretoria-based coach, Kitch Christie, to Johannesburg to play for the Lions. It was as a member of Christie’s great Lions team that Strydom became a Springbok in 1993, although Ian McIntosh was still coaching the Boks at the time. He would eventually play 115 matches for the Golden Lions and 21 tests for the Springboks.
Strydom’s greatest fame came when he and Kobus Wiese were Christie’s lock pair in the famous 1995 World Cup final against the All Blacks at Ellis Park, during which the Springboks tasted World Cup glory for the first time.
After his rugby career, he continued his career as a pharmacist and was also a successful businessman, owning the Pharma-Valu pharmacy group.
Strydom has been a Pretorian since his move from the Eastern Cape in 1993 and even during his playing days for the Lions he still lived in Pretoria.
The flanker Ruben Kruger died of brain cancer in 2010, while scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen died in 2017 after a battle with motor neurone disease. The two wings, James Small and Chester Williams died of heart attacks shortly after each other in 2019.
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