I know nothing about rugby. In 13 years of living in South Africa I’ve attended only one live rugby match. But I know a lot about sports and I know a lot about people. And I know that Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand was something I’ve never seen before: An entire nation of 62 million people coming together – forgetting their gaping divides, forgetting their country’s problems and all the world’s problems – experiencing unadulterated joy while watching a sports team that belongs to all of them.
Spinning Bicycles in Soweto
Last Saturday afternoon I stood on Mbolekwa Street in Dlamini, Soweto, with a couple of hundred other spectators, watching teenage boys spinning around on super-long, low-slung bicycles. Most of the bikes didn’t have brakes, or even seats in some cases. The bikes were almost double the length of normal bicycles and their back tires were wrapped in cut-up plastic bottles.
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How (Not) to Jump Off a Stadium
The Commonwealth Games, an Olympics-like sporting competition involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, are headed to Durban in 2022. The 2022 host city won’t be officially announced until September 2015, but it turns out that Durban is the only bidder. (Edmonton, Canada, initially submitted a bid but later withdrew it.) So…yay! It’s not 100% confirmed but the Commonwealth Games are most likely coming to Africa for the first time ever.