To the delight of sports fans, the South African team, comprising athletes from various sporting disciplines, beat 33 countries at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester during July and August 2002 to be ranked sixth overall with a total of 46 medals (nine gold, 20 silver and 17 bronze).
Other track athletes who fared well included Okkert Brits (gold for men's pole vault), and Janus Robberts (silver in men's shot-put).
Swimming sensation Natalie du Toit stole the show with her inspiring performance in the 50 m and 100 m elite athlete with a disability freestyle swimming events, for which she won two gold medals and broke two world records. The 18 year-old from Cape Town, who had her left leg amputated following a motor cycle accident in 2001, also made it into the final of the 800 m open swimming event where she achieved a personal best of 13,57 seconds.
Roland Schoeman also caused a stir when he beat Australian Brett Hawke and Englishman Mark Foster to the gold in the men's 100 m freestyle event, with a time of 22,33 seconds. He also won silver in the 50 m butterfly.
bore rifle competition. At the Games, elite athletes with a disability participated for the first time as part of a fullyinclusive Team South Africa sent by the South African Commonwealth Games Association and SASC.
Alet Moll, class TT3 (paraplegic), won the silver medal in the table tennis open women's sitting event, losing in the final to Sue Gilroy of England. This is the first medal won by a South African in table tennis for either the able-bodied or disabled.
South Africans Shaun Bownes and Hestrie Cloete won gold medals at the Africa Track and Field championships in Tunis, Tunisia in August 2002.
Bownes clocked 13,36 sec for a 0,44 second victory margin over Madagascar's Berlioz Randriamihaja while Cloete's clearance of 1,95 m put her 25 cm above Algeria's Amina Lemghirbi.
Cloete attained 2,02 m to win the high jump while Brits cleared 5,75 m to win the pole vault.
Seeded seventh, the Boks beat the topseeded All Blacks in the semifinals to go through to a final that Australia was expected to dominate.
The Bafana Bafana squad under the leadership of coach Jomo Sono did well in the 2002 FIFA Korea Japan Soccer World Cup.
The squad moved into the second round of the cup with a narrow victory of 1 - 0 over Slovenia.
They were still heading for a last 16 matchup against Germany when a third and final goal for rival Paraguay in the other Group B game spelled disaster.
South Africa and Paraguay finished tied on points for the qualifying second place and were also level on goal difference. However, Paraguay went through by dint of scoring six goals to South Africa's five.
The squad was given a heroes' welcome in Johannesburg despite their 3 - 2 defeat against Spain.
The result equals South Africa's previous best, which was a 4 - 1 win over Namibia in the 1998 African Nations Cup of Nations in Burkina Faso.
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