๐ ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐ข๐ฆ๐: ๐๐๐ฐ ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ง๐ ๐ - ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ๐ก ๐๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ (๐๐: ๐ - ๐)
South Africa book their place in the final after overcoming New Zealand in a dramatic shoot-out. Goalkeeper Cullin De Jager delivers a standout performance as the hosts hold their nerve in front of their home crowd and secure a place in tomorrow's final, where they will face France.
๐ฑ Stream all the matches on https://t.co/pmpjGVQrhH .
#Hockey #FIHNationsCup
๐๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ง๐๐ข๐ก๐ฆ ๐๐จ๐ฃ
After an incredible 2-2 drew with New Zealand, the South Africans held firm to win the shootout 2-0 and secure a place in the FIH Hockey Nations Cup.
Photos - World Sports Pics
#MoreThanHockey
๐ DOUBLE-HEADER LOADING...
The Springboks are back in action tomorrow.
โฐ Zimbabwe โ 12:00
โฐ Barbarian โ 15:00
Time to wear your green and gold, get behind the boys, and make some noise! ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฅ
#TeamSA#ForMyCountry
๐จ ๐ฝ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ผ ๐จ
Bafana Bafana ๐ฟ๐ฆ claim their first point of FIFA World Cup 2026 and will have it all to do against Korea Republic in their third and final Group A fixture.
#SABCSportFootball#AllOfUsAllInKaofela#FIFAWorldCup
87' - With the scores level, the game has opened up more with Czechia looking to be positive once more.
๐จ LIVE
๐บ SABC 1 | SABC 3
๐ https://t.co/26PdrPrnVE
#SABCSportFootball#AllOfUsAllInKaofela#FIFAWorldCup
GOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL! BAFANA BAFANA BACK IN IT! โค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
9' - Modiba loses his man as Czechia go threatening again, but this time the flag is up for offside.
๐จ LIVE
๐บ SABC 1 | SABC 3
๐ https://t.co/26PdrPrnVE
#SABCSportFootball#AllOfUsAllInKaofela#FIFAWorldCup
๐จ It's MATCH DAY!!! ๐จ
โฝ Czechia vs Bafana Bafana
๐ Thursday, 18 June 2026
โ๐๏ธ Atlanta Stadium
๐ Kick-off: 18:00
๐ฅ SABC1 & SABC Sport
Photo Credit: @MLS#Fifaworldcup#BafanaPride#BafanaBafana
Springbok season is here! ๐
The Barbarians are in town this Saturday for the YesPlay Cup ๐ฟ๐ฆ๐ฒ
โช๏ธ 11:30 | SA 'A' vs Zimbabwe | Build-up
โช๏ธ 12:00 | SA 'A' vs Zimbabwe | Kick-off
โช๏ธ 14:00 | Boks vs Barbarians | Build-up
โช๏ธ 15:00 | Boks vs Barbarians | Kick-off
โช๏ธ 17:00 | Boks vs Barbarians | Wrap
Watch it ๐๐๐๐ on the #SSRugby channel ๐บ
๐ GERDA STEYN MAKES COMRADES HISTORY WITH RECORD-BREAKING FIFTH TITLE ๐โโ๏ธ
The Smiling Assassin told herself to run it as if sheโd never get the chance again.
Then she went out and broke the record.
Gerda Steyn crossed the finish line at Hollywoodbets Scottsville Racecourse in Pietermaritzburg on Sunday morning in a time of 5:44:53, claiming her fifth Comrades Marathon title and smashing her own up-run record in the process. It was the kind of performance that makes you reach for superlatives and find none quite big enough.
Five wins. Five records. The Smiling Assassin is in a league entirely of her own.
In the days before race day, Steyn had spoken publicly about the mindset she had carried through every kilometre of her preparation for the 99th edition of the Ultimate Human Race. She told journalists she had trained for this up run as though it might be the last time she would ever get to do it. Not as a premonition, not as doubt โ but as fuel. A way of extracting every last fraction of effort from herself before she even reached the start line outside Durban City Hall.
โMy mantra on Sunday is to run as if Iโll never get this chance again,โ she said.
She ran exactly like that.
The 85.777km route from Durban to Pietermaritzburg is the shortest up-run course in the raceโs recorded history, but no one told the Inchanga climb about that. Comrades is Comrades. The hills donโt negotiate. The hours are long and unforgiving, and the question the race asks of every runner โ however fast, however prepared โ is always the same. How much do you want this?
Steynโs answer, in 5:44:53, was unambiguous.
She broke her own 2024 up-run record of 5:49:46 by nearly five minutes, taking almost five seconds off one of the greatest womenโs performances this race has ever seen. Second place, Zimbabweโs Nobukhosi Tshuma, crossed in 5:53:36 โ over nine minutes back. In a field of over 20,000 runners, there was no contest for the womenโs title. There never really is, when Gerda Steyn decides to run.
JAY | JPS SAYS: โGerda Steyn has done something that no other South African woman in history has done. Five Comrades titles, both course records, seven Two Oceans wins. At 36, still breaking her own records. If this isnโt the greatest career in South African road running, Iโd love to know whose is.โ
The prize money speaks to the scale of the performance. She earned R925,000 for the win, a further R605,000 for the new up-run record, and an additional R550,000 for breaking her own fastest average pace benchmark from 2024. Total payout: R2.08 million from a single race morning. Remarkable by any measure โ and earned in full.
The five-win milestone places Steyn in company so rare it barely has a name. She is now only the second woman in the entire history of the Comrades Marathon to win the race five times.
The first was Elena Nurgalieva of Russia, who accumulated eight victories over a storied career. Until Nurgalieva and Bruce Fordyce reset expectations for what sustained dominance looks like at this race, five wins was considered the benchmark for genuine legend status.
Steyn has reached it at 36, with records in both directions, and no sign of slowing down.
The story of how she got here is worth telling properly.
Her Comrades debut as a winner came in 2019, when she became the first woman in history to complete the up run in under six hours. She crossed in 5:58:53, knocking more than ten minutes off Elena Nurgalievaโs 2006 record of 6:09:24 and winning by over 18 minutes โ the largest winning margin in the womenโs race since the event went international.
A nation watched. The president tweeted his congratulations. Gerda Steyn, a former quantity surveyor from Bothaville in the Free State, had arrived.
She stayed away from Comrades in 2022 to focus on shorter distances, but her return in 2023 was something else entirely. The down run that year produced one of the greatest womenโs ultramarathon performances ever recorded anywhere.
Frith van der Merweโs down-run record of 5:54:43 had stood since 1989 โ 34 years of supremacy, an era unto itself. Steyn erased it with a 5:44:54, beating it by nine minutes and 49 seconds. The record holder herself said she was relieved it was Gerda who finally did it.
Then came 2024, where Steyn broke her own 2019 up-run record with a 5:49:46. Then 2025, a down-run win in 5:51:19. And now 2026 โ another record, another title, another morning where the Smiling Assassin did exactly what the Smiling Assassin does.
The Comrades is not the only place she has been doing this. Her name appears all over South African road runningโs record books.
Seven wins at the Two Oceans Marathon โ the 56km race in Cape Town she has made her own since 2018. The South African marathon record of 2:24:03, set in Valencia in 2023. Double Olympic representation. A permanent Blue Number at Two Oceans for her loyalty and longevity in the race.
At every distance, on every surface, year after year: Gerda Steyn.
The thing about the โlast raceโ mindset she described before Sunday is what it reveals about her psychology.
She is not someone who coasts.
She is not someone who banks on reputation or lets the weight of accumulated titles carry her to the line. At 36, five Comrades wins to her name, she still had to invent urgency to find another edge.
That is not the approach of an athlete running out of motivation. That is the approach of an athlete who genuinely loves this race, loves what it demands, and keeps coming back not because she has to โ but because she cannot imagine not.
Written by Jay | JPS #comradesmarathon #athlete #GerdaSteyn