For many South Africans, sport is the glue that holds them together. Transcending race, politics or language group, sport unites the country - and not just the male half of it. When a South African team wins, a cacophony of hooting, cheering, banging of dustbin lids, trumpeting on cow horns and fireworks reverberates across the largest cities. The national adrenaline goes into overdrive.

In a country that boasts a great climate for outdoor activity, there are plenty of participants, and even more fans, focused mainly only soccer, cricket and rugby, but going far beyond the country's "big three". South Africa has also bred world champion swimmers, athletes, surfers, boxers, tennis players and more. We have a land that lends itself to a wide variety of sports: 3 000 km of dramatic coastlines, ocean beds, mountain ranges, rivers, forests and plenty of wide-open space.

Sport, like no other South African institution, has shown it has the power to heal old wounds. When the South African team, the Springboks, won the Rugby World Cup on its home turf in 1995, Nelson Mandela donned the No 6 shirt of the team's captain - Francois Pienaar, a white Afrikaner - and the two embraced in a spontaneous gesture of racial reconciliation which melted hearts around the country.

A year later in 1996, Mandela was on hand once more to present another big trophy to a South African team. This time it was the national soccer team, lifting the African Cup of Nations.

Two years later the world's top athletes were in Johannesburg for the World Cup of Athletics, in 2003 the country had the opportunity to successfully host the Cricket World Cup and in 2010 the world's biggest sporting event after the Olympic Games is coming to South Africa: the 2010 Football World Cup.

World Class facilities

South Africa is the home of world-class sporting facilities capable of accommodating tens of thousands of spectators in comfort, such as the picturesque Newlands grounds. Cape Town's famous Table Mountain stares down on the ground and clouds rolling over the top of the mountain make for a stunning backdrop.

The picturesque Newlands grounds in Cape Town (Photo: South Africa Info )

Johannesburg's Ellis Park is a rugby cauldron. Playing at altitude against the Springboks is surely one of the tougher challenges in world rugby. It makes for a marvellous picture when filled to capacity, as it was on 24 June 1995, when South Africa met New Zealand in the World Cup final.

South Africa's premier soccer venue is the FNB Stadium, known as Soccer City. It seats a massive 94 700, and never has it made for a more thrilling sight than on 3 February 1996, when Bafana Bafana beat Tunisia in the final of the African Cup of Nations.

Capturing that moment of reconciliation: Nelson Mandela, wearing the Number 6 jersey, hands over the trophy to Springbok captain Francois Pienaar. South Africa had just won the 1995 Rugby World Cup - and much more: finally, it seemed, the country had come together as one. (Photograph of an installation in the Apartheid Museum)

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