1966 — In a race billed as the “Olympic final that never was”, Karen Muir breaks the 110-yard backstroke world record at Durban’s beach baths, beating local rival Ann Fairlie, France’s Kiki Caron and American Cathy Ferguson. Ferguson and Caron were the gold and silver medallists in this event at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, from which South Africa had been barred. Muir’s time was 68 seconds, which would translated into 67.5 sec over the shorter but official 100 metres, 0.1 sec quicker than Ferguson’s world record.
1975 — More than 100,000 racing fans packed into Kyalami to watch Jody Scheckter become the first South African to win the South African Grand Prix, out-duelling Argentina’s Carlos Reutemann, the defending champion. Scheckter’s Tyrrell-Ford had an untested engine after his car had been wrecked in Friday’s practice and then his engine had blown up during pre-race practice. It was the 21st edition of the SA GP, which kicked off in East London in 1934. Scheckter remains the only SA driver to have won the event, which was last staged in 1993.
1997 — Unheralded Jerry Malinga is stopped in the third round by England’s WBU junior-welterweight champion Shea Neary in Liverpool.
2003 — Jan Bergman’s tenure as a world title contender effectively comes to an end when he’s stopped in the seventh round by England’s IBO welterweight title-holder Jawaid Khaliq at Carnival City. It had been a see-saw fight with both fighters getting decked twice each before the South African was felled with a shot that opened a terrible cut above his eye. Bergman had vacated the WBU welterweight title to challenge for the IBO belt. On the same card, SA super-middleweight champion Andre Thysse pulled off one of the big wins of his career as he outpointed fancied Englishman David Starie to lift the Commonwealth title.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.