1977 — Welsh driver Tom Pryce and a teenage fire marshal are killed in a freak accident during the SA Grand Prix at Kyalami. Pryce’s Shadow teammate, Renzo Zorzi, had stopped on the outside of the track opposite the marshal’s post and his car caught fire. He jumped out safely and even activated the car’s own fire extinguishing system. Two marshals, however, ran across the track to assist. The first got there safely, but Frederick “Frikkie” Jansen van Vuuren, a 19-year-old clerk at Jan Smuts Airport, as OR Tambo was then known, was struck by Pryce, who was travelling at about 270km/h, and the extinguisher he was carrying hit the driver in the head. Pryce’s helmet disintegrated in the crash and spectators saw his head slumped sideways and blood spurting from the cockpit. Both men were killed instantly. Pryce’s car, however, continued down the straight for about one kilometre before crashing into the Ligier driven by Frenchman Jacques Lafitte at Crowthorne Corner. Marshals were later instructed to keep curious fans away from the scene of the accident after some had been spotted taking pieces of wreckage, presumably as macabre souvenirs. The fire extinguisher, which flew upwards after the impact, was later found in a car park about 100m away. Niki Lauda, who himself had survived a devastating crash the previous year, won the race ahead of SA’s Jody Scheckter, who moved to the top of the championship standings. Lauda, out of respect for Pryce, declined to perform the usual celebratory gesture of spraying champagne. Pryce, 27, was the 55th driver to have been killed in grand prix racing in just 13 years. Local race organisers were blamed for lack of adequate protocols, which included not having marshals on both sides of the track, and Britain’s reigning world champion James Hunt, who had finished fourth, suggested a team of trained marshals travel with the F1 circus to ensure a high standard of safety at each race around the world.
1992 — South Africa, recently back from international isolation, take on the mighty West Indies for the first time, facing off in a World Cup match in Christchurch, New Zealand. Having lost to New Zealand and Sri Lanka in their previous two outings, expectations were not overly high against a side brimming with legends like Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, Carl Hooper, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and a young Brian Lara. SA were put into bat first and Peter Kirsten scored 56 to steer SA to 200/8. Then the SA bowlers turned West Indian as they dismissed their opponents for 136. Meyrick Pringle took 4/11, Allan Donald 1/13 and Richard Snell 2/16.
2005 — Jacques Freitag, the reigning world high-jump champion, improves the South African record to 2.38m in Oudtshoorn.
2011 — Kaizer Mabuza is stopped in the seventh round by American star Zab Judah for the vacant IBF junior-welterweight title in Newark, US.
2014 — Bafana Bafana suffer their worst defeat since readmission as they go down 0-5 to Brazil in a friendly at FNB Stadium. Neymar scored a hat-trick on the night, running through the SA defence as if they weren’t there in a match that was the final fixture of the South American nation’s world tour ahead of them hosting the World Cup later that year.
2019 — Australia take a 1-0 lead in the test series when they beat the Proteas by 118 runs in the first five-dayer in Durban. The hosts needed 417 to win in their second innings, but were bowled out for 298. The only resistance came from opener Aiden Markram with 143 and wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock's 83. Only one other batsman, Theunis de Bruyn, reached double figures.
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