Word: cupful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sense South Africa's springboks may fulfil their promise gloriously in this year's Rugby World Cup. At the Parc des Princes in Paris on Sept. 9, they trounced Samoa by the withering score of 59-7. Their star black player, Bryan Habana, scored four tries, fueling hopes that the team might triumph over England on Sept. 14 and ultimately make it to the final...
...were once among the most powerful symbols of the nation's apartheid regime and a prime target of the international sports boycott aimed at ending white rule. Then, in 1995, one year after Nelson Mandela's election as President inaugurated democratic majority rule, South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup - and won. As tens of thousands of fans - almost all of them white - erupted in the stands, Mandela donned a Springbok jersey and went onto the field to hug the team's captain. For many, this historic embrace symbolized white acceptance of the new order. Apartheid, it seemed, was finally...
...years later, South Africa's team looks much like it did right after apartheid's collapse. In a country where black people make up 80% of the population, the 30-man rugby squad includes just six players of color - only one more than it took to the 2003 World Cup in Australia, in the build-up to which a white Springbok player notoriously refused to room with a black teammate. And only two blacks started the game against Samoa. Zola Yeye, who last year became the first black team manager in the Springboks' 101-year history, says the team...
This year's World Cup may be the last time the Springboks field so many whites. South African politicians have warned that future teams will have to integrate more, even at the expense of winning. Ultimately, says Yeye, quotas might be the only way to alter the Springboks' racial mix. Yet he concedes that even black players don't like that idea, since they fear they will be seen as token...
...meantime, the team takes to the field with the blessing of its most famous fan: Mandela. He came to Paris to root for the Springboks and to accept from the International Rugby Board a crystal rugby ball bearing the inscription: "For what you have done during the 1995 World Cup to unite your nation under the banner of rugby." Much is left for others to do to live up to that daunting promise...