Josia Thugwane after winning the men's marathon at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Picture: Georges Gobet/AFP-IOPP/AFP
South Africa has a spotted and storied history at the Olympics that goes back 120 years.
Most of the country’s population was not represented at the quadrennial showpiece until the early Nineties, and the consequences of Apartheid rule resulted in the nation missing out on seven editions of the Games.
But there have also been some memorable performances and historic achievements along the way.
Ahead of this year’s Paris Games starting this week, we look at some of South Africa’s most memorable moments.
While people of colour did not officially represent South Africa at the Olympics until 1992, the nation’s first unofficial participants were black athletes.
Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiani, British prisoners who were part of an exhibit at the 1904 World’s Fair (also held in St Louis) took part in the men’s marathon as individual entrants.
They became the first South Africans to compete at the Games, with Taunyane taking ninth place and Mashiani ending 12th.
Another South African prisoner at the World’s Fair, Bertie Harris, also entered the marathon but did not finish the race, and two days later a team of ‘Boers’ took a share of last place in the tug of war competition.
Four years after Taunyane and Mashiani made history as the first African participants at the Games, teenager Reggie Walker won SA’s first Olympic gold in London.
Competing in the 100m sprint, as part of the first official national team to be entered, Walker outclassed the other 59 entrants in track and field’s flagship event.
He won his heat and his semifinal, and he went on to equal the Olympic record of 10.8 seconds (hand-timed) in the final, narrowly holding off a challenge from American athlete James Rector who grabbed the silver medal in 10.9.
Having achieved victory at the age of 19, Walker remains the youngest athlete from any country to have won the Olympic 100m title.
Heading into the 1928 Games, South Africa had secured a total of 21 Olympic medals over the previous 20 years, but they were all achieved by men. That changed in Amsterdam in what was a breakthrough for SA women’s sport.
In the heats, the national women’s 4x100m freestyle relay swimming team – Rhoda Rennie, Frederica van der Goes, Mary Bedford and Kathleen Russell – were well off the pace of the United States and the Netherlands, but they did enough to finish third in their race to book a spot in the final.
Delivering in spectacular fashion in the medal contest, they went four seconds faster than they had swum in the heats, grabbing third place and a historic bronze.
With the country making its return to the Olympics after 32 years of isolation, tennis players Wayne Ferreira and Pietie Norval did well to take the runner-up spot in the men’s doubles final.
Later that day, distance runner Elana Meyer was even more impressive, producing perhaps the most memorable performance by a South African at the Olympics.
Meyer settled for the silver medal behind Ethiopian teenager Derartu Tulu in the women’s 10 000m final, but it was the scenes after the race which became etched in history.
Tulu, the first black African woman to win Olympic gold, and Meyer, a white South African, shared an emotional lap of honour in what was a victory for the continent both on and off the track.
While the nation picked up two medals in 1992, South Africa had to wait another four years for its first post-isolation gold medal.
And when 21-year-old breaststroke swimmer Penny Heyns ended the drought, she did it in style, winning both the women’s 100m and 200m finals.
Heyns became the first member of Team SA to earn an Olympic gold medal since 1952. She was also the first South African to bag two gold medals since tennis player Charles Winslow won the men’s singles and doubles titles in 1912.
Though she peaked in Atlanta, Heyns would go on to step on the podium again in 2000, securing bronze in the 100m breaststroke in Sydney.
With no clear favourite in the men’s 800m event at the Atlanta Games, 22-year-old Hezekiel Sepeng grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
After winning his heat and his semifinal, Sepeng was one of four athletes involved in a blanket finish in the final, and he held on to take second place behind Norwegian athlete Vebjorn Rodal.
Securing the silver medal, Sepeng became the first black South African athlete to step on the podium at the Olympic Games.
Four days later, little-known long-distance runner Josia Thugwane made history of his own by snatching victory in the men’s marathon as he held off South Korea’s Lee Bong-Ju by just three seconds. Thugwane became the first black South African to win Olympic gold.
American superstar Michael Phelps was the firm favourite for the men’s 200m butterfly final in London, but he was upset by 20-year-old swimmer Chad le Clos.
The South African prodigy stopped the clock at 1:52.96, setting an African record and edging Phelps by 0.05 in what was such a close race that American fans suggested Phelps had been robbed, as from certain angles it seemed as if he had touched first. But electronic timing doesn’t lie and Le Clos was awarded gold.
Le Clos went on to finish second in the 100m butterfly, and at the 2016 Rio Games he would earn two more silvers, becoming SA’s most decorated Olympian with four career medals.
Middle-distance runner Caster Semenya had been denied glory at the 2012 Games in London after she finished second behind Mariya Savinova.
The Russian athlete, who won the women’s 800m final, was later stripped of her title after being found guilty of doping, and Semenya was promoted to first place, though she didn’t get a chance to hear the national anthem on the top step of the podium.
In Rio, however, Semenya was denied nothing. In superb form, she won the two-lap final comfortably, more than a full second ahead of the rest of the field.
With her victory, she became the first South African to successfully retain an Olympic title in any sport.
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