I learned my skills trying to stay alive
KOLBE TELLS HOW SIDESTEPPING VIOLENCE IN CAPE TOWN MADE HIM A WORLD CUP WINNER
CHESLIN KOLBE is the World Cup winner who learned to run to stay alive.
The South African whose dazzling footwork left Owen Farrell floundering and England mourning the end of their dream in last October’s final.
The winger whose killer sidestep befuddled Ireland star Jacob Stockdale a week ago as Toulouse breezed past Ulster into the last four of the Champions Cup.
Next up are Exeter Chiefs, who take on the French giants at Sandy Park tomorrow for a place in next month’s European final.
They know what is coming their way, but so did England and Ulster – for all the good it did them.
Kolbe, 26, does not make a habit of getting caught – for the simple reason that growing up on the northern edge of Cape Town it could have proved fatal.
He said: “It was a community in which random gang wars and stuff happened.
“Whenever you played in the street, a gang war or a shooting could break out – and you’d just run for your life.
“You don’t want to be a victim of things like that, so that’s where everything comes from, trying to avoid getting shot.”
His childhood days were spent playing with his cousin,
Wayde van Niekerk, who could also move a bit. Four years ago, he won Olympic 400m gold in Rio in a world-record time.
“We were very competitive,” recalled Kolbe. “Playing touch rugby in the street, we always wanted to beat each other.”
They went to school together and, when Kolbe got home each day, he would work on his sidestep.
“Whether I was going to take a shower or get something from the fridge, I would always run and make sure I sidestepped something or other,” he smiled.
He taught himself to step off both feet and, years later, with the gaze of the rugby world fixed on him in Yokohama, all that work paid off as he cut inside Farrell to seal a World Cup final victory for the Springboks.
It was an emotional triumph for Kolbe as his father Andrew, a brilliant inside-centre in the apartheid years, was denied the chance to play top-level rugby.
“He always told me, ‘ You have everything going for you, you have the opportunity, make the most of it’,” he said.
“That ’ s what kept motivating me: ‘ Make sure I make my dad proud’.”
He says he wants to also “hopefully, inspire those people in my community to not fall into the trap of gangsters and drugs”.
A European medal to put beside the World Cup would do the job just nicely.