The Springboks Women’s sevens team beat Fiji 21-15 to secure their first win and 11th place at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
After a difficult tournament where they lost all of their group games, Renfred Dazel’s team finally clicked as they won a close match against the flying Fijians.
🏉 Full-Time 🏉#TeamSA secures their first win! 🔥#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/gZcdpNZgfe
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 30, 2024
South Africa raced to a 14-0 lead early on after a brace of tries from Nadine Roos, which she converted herself.
A try by Zintle Mpupha and a Roos conversionn early in the second half put South Africa 21-0 up, but with victory on the horizon, they took their foot off the gas and allowed the Fijians back in the game.
Three late Fijian tries, all of which were unconverted, ensured there there would be a nervy finish to the encounter. In the end, South Africa walked away with a 21-15 win.
Badenhorst advances to rowing semi-finals
Team SA’s Paige Badenhorst finished her women’s singles sculls quarter-final heat in fourth in a time of 7:44.03, which was fast enough to see her advance to Wednesday’s semi-finals.
4th place for Paige Badenhorst - she progresses to the C/D Semifinal to compete for places 13 to 24! 💪![CDATA[]]>🇿![CDATA[]]>🇦#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/m6EEHef0g2
— Team South Africa (@OfficialTeamRSA) July 30, 2024
Team SA men’s hockey continue to struggle
In the men’s hockey, South Africa are still without a win after a 5-1 hammering at the hands of Germany.
After losing 5-3 to the Netherlands in their opening game, South Africa followed that up with an encouraging 2-2 draw against Great Britain on Sunday.
Unfortunately, their match on Tuesday, things didn’t go as well as the Germans just proved too good in every area of the park.
Full-Time: 🏑A challenging match for our men's hockey team. 🏑#TeamSA #ForMyCountry #Olympics pic.twitter.com/KXDynbFiwD
The Germans kept the score ticking over with goals at regular intervals as they ran circles around the South Africans. Matthew Guise-Brown scored a consolation goal in the third quarter, but at that stage, it was a little too late to inspire a fightback.
Young Sates misses out
South Africa had a great day in the pool on Monday when Tatjana Smith won the country’s first gold medal at the games.
Things didn’t go as well on Tuesday though, as 21-year-old Matthew Sates finished 6th in his men’s 200m butterfly heat which saw him miss out of the semi-finals.
Sates, competing in his second Olympics, will hope for an improved performance in the men’s 200 individual medley on Thursday.
In the men’s park BMX freestyle, Team SA’s Vincent Leygonie missed out of qualifying for the final after finishing 12th with an average score of 75.85 after his two runs.
Earlier on Tuesday, the men’s triathlon was postponed due to unsafe pollution levels in the River Seine.
Henri Schoeman, the bronze medalist from the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, is South Africa’s hope for a medal, and will have to wait for another day to compete.
IOL Sport