It's the national religion. Transcending race, politics or language group, sport unites the country - and not just the male half of it.
When a South African team wins, a cacophony of hooting, cheering, banging of dustbin lids, trumpeting on cow horns and fireworks reverberates across the largest cities. The national adrenaline goes into overdrive. Maybe even the GDP goes up. Just don't look too cheerful on the Monday morning after a dismal sporting weekend!
Sport, like no other South African institution, has shown it has the power to heal old wounds. When the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup on home turf in 1995, Nelson Mandela donned the No 6 shirt of the team's captain - Francois Pienaar, a white Afrikaner - and the two embraced in a spontaneous gesture of racial reconciliation which melted hearts around the country.

A single moment, and 400 years of colonial strife and bitterness … suddenly seemed so petty.

Racially segregated sport
It wasn't always that way. During the apartheid era, racially segregated sport was a highly divisive issue .

But it was a sporting moment that first helped to heal the country's racial rift. In 1992, the country returned to the Olympics for the first time since it was barred 32 years earlier. In the women's 10 000 metre finals in Barcelona, two runners dominated the field, running shoulder to shoulder, lap after lap, way ahead of the field. Tulu became the first African woman to win a major Olympic title, but the big moment was afterwards when Tulu and Meyer embraced, then ran a lap of honour together, each draped in her country's national flag, a white Afrikaner and a black African together, cheered on by the crowds.

SA's 'big three' sports
The major sports in which South Africa excels are rugby and cricket. For over a century, the country has regularly fielded powerful teams, playing chiefly against England, Australia and New Zealand.

But it is football - or soccer, as it is universally called here - that has won the hearts of South Africa's black majority.
South Africa is by no means a giant in the world of soccer, but for many black South Africans, the country's proudest sporting moment came when it won the African Nations Cup on home turf in 1996 - having failed to even qualify for the previous cup.

Soccer is intensely followed, and the quality of the local game keeps improving - as is demonstrated by the increasing number of South African players-in-exile among the glamorous European clubs.
The national team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana, which means "The Boys", is extraordinarily erratic, beating giants, then succumbing to minnows.
Local teams, organised in a national league plus a plethora of knock-out cups, are followed with the same passion as in many other countries, by paint-daubed, costumed, whistling and cheering fans. Mercifully, the country has been spared the spectre of football hooliganism.

Golfing greats
In a country with stunning landsaceps, golf has to feature. It is not surprising that South Africa has bred some world-beating stars, Bobby Locke in the post-World War Two, Gary Player  Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and others.

World-class facilities
South Africa is the home of world-class sporting facilities capable of accommodating tens of thousands of spectators in comfort, such as the picturesque Newlands grounds, nestled at the foot of Cape Town's mountains, and the energy-charged Wanderers Cricket Grounds in Johannesburg.

With the FIFA 2010 World Cup being held in South Africa and Africa for the first time,there has been a major overhaul of exisitng stadiums as well as new stadiums having been built to host this momnumental event.
 
There are world-renowned rugby stadiums such as Pretoria's Loftus Versfeld, home fortress of the feared Blue Bulls team; Johannesburg's Ellis Park, where the 1995 World Cup final was staged, and Durban's Kings Park, home of one of the best local sides, the Sharks.

Basketball, completely unknown here 12 years ago, has recently become more popular. Basketball is now offered as a sport at many schools. American-style football is unknown – although a few recycled South African rugby players have enjoyed modest success on the gridiron in the twilight of their careers.

Ultra marathons
South Africa offers some of the world's toughest endurance races, including the Comrades Marathon (raced between coastal Durban and mountainous Pietermaritzburg) and the Two Oceans Marathon, which wends its way amidst the mountains around Cape Town.
There are several back-breaking canoe marathons, of which the king is the Dusi in Kwa-Zulu Natal, with its tortuous rapids, rocky hills and a myriad other discomforts.

The mountains offer hiking, rock climbing and hang gliding. Bring binoculars; the birds are magnificent.
Those parts of the great outdoors that are slightly flatter will allow you, for example, to ride bicycles, motorbikes or 4x4s through miles of mud and dirt.
There is fishing and sailing, hot air ballooning and gliding, horse riding, bungee jumping over large ravines, and big game hunting. In short: there's every form of summer sport you can expect from a country with great wide open space.

If you're looking to find great accommodation while watching or playing your favourite sport on South Africa, please do not hesitate to contact us for free assistance.