OPINION: From down and out to donning bronze, Blitzboks show SA fighting spirit

The Blitzboks can rightly feel proud of their achievement at the Paris Olympics after winning the bronze medal on Saturday – South Africa’s first medal of the 2024 Games.

The team have travelled on a rocky road over the last two years, failing to impress in the world series, having key players move on to XV-man rugby, and others quitting, while there have also been changes in the coaching team.

Results have been poor and the team failed to qualify automatically for the Games, something they did without even thinking about for the 2016 and 2020 events, so dominant were they on the world circuit.

But not this time. This time just getting to the Paris Games felt like a struggle all on its own.

They also failed to qualify from the African qualifying event, losing out to Kenya, which was a shock to the system, and had to rely on winning the repechage tournament in Monaco just a few weeks ago to get into the Games as the last team.

Olympic Sevens tournament

Seeded 12th out of 12 teams, they were in a difficult pool with Ireland and New Zealand, as well as Japan, in the Paris Sevens tournament and lost their first two games to the first two teams mentioned here. They had to hammer Japan to just make it into the quarter-finals, as one of two best-placed third teams from the three pools, and they did that.

Then, in arguably their best result in the last year, they shocked New Zealand in the quarters. They would play for a medal.

Guts and determination

In their semi-final, against hosts France, they had their chances and could have won, but it wasn’t to be … they were left with one match they had to win to bag a medal – the bronze. And they did it, by beating Australia in a thrilling bronze medal match!

You can say the Blitzboks got lucky, as Australia were reduced to playing with six men because of a red card, and that as a third-place finisher in their pool they shouldn’t have advanced to the knockouts. True, but those are the rules, and that’s how things go in sport, you can only play what’s in front of you and do what is required to advance or win.

The Blitzboks showed true SA fighting spirit, guts and determination and for a brief moment this last weekend they brought joy to thousands. And that’s what the Olympics are all about – doing the remarkable and coming out on top, especially when the odds are against you.