Springboks return to hero’s welcome
Johannesburg, Nov. 6: Siya Kolisi kept hoisting the Rugby World Cup trophy in the air and the thousands of South Africans who gathered to welcome home their triumphant Springboks team cheered louder each time.
The Springboks’ first black captain gave his nation another golden rugby moment when he paraded the Webb Ellis Cup through a packed arrivals hall at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
The surprisingly dominant 32-12 win over England in Saturday’s final in Japan delivered South Africa’s third Rugby World Cup title. There’s a mood at home that this one might be as meaningful as the first in 1995, won in front of Nelson Mandela and in the immediate aftermath of the dismantling of apartheid.
That gave hope but nearly a quarter of a century later South Africa is still weighed down by the legacy of the apartheid system of racial segregation, and by some new problems on top. South Africans in 2019 worry almost incessantly about poverty, unemployment, violent crime, corruption and a struggling economy in their young democracy.
But this was not a day for frowning in South Africa.
Not even when the people packed into the airport arrivals hall, and the balconies overhead, were made to wait nearly four hours to see Kolisi and the trophy.
As Kolisi emerged from the airplane and walked down a corridor with the cup, airport workers abandoned their stations and followed, singing, dancing and gyrating alongside him. In the arrivals hall, boys and girls were hoisted onto dad’s shoulders for a better view, bed time on a school night was irrelevant. A huge South African flag hung from a balcony and down one wall. When Kolisi and the trophy finally came into view, the crowd — noticeably multiracial — erupted over and over.
“I think we won because we definitely wanted it a lot. I know they (England) also wanted it a lot but I must say the people outside here and the people inside here did help us a lot,” Kolisi said.