Hi guys… If you are a big fan of sports and searching for popular sports in South Africa, then you are on the right page. Currently in this post, we are providing you short info on top 5 popular sports in South Africa.

Sports are most popular in South Africa, and South Africa is one of the few nations on the African continent to be passionate about more than just one or two chief sports. As the country’s multi-decade international sporting ban was lifted, South Africa’s rich sporting history has become a major source of national pride. Part of this due to the legalization of gambling on sport in the early 2000s, which has made supporting the cricket, football and rugby an even more exciting pastime.

Today, the sporting industry continues to positively contribute to the African economy. Now the African country enjoys an equal opportunity to host the high-profile global sporting events which have put Africa on the international sports map. There are many popular sports played in South Africa. Out of them now we are providing top 5 popular sports in South Africa.

Related: The Most Popular Top 10 Sports Watched in America

Popular Sports in South Africa

1. Cycling

Cycling is one of the most popular sports in South Africa. South Africa hosts the two largest individually-times bike races in the world. Cycling is also called as bicycling or biking. Cycling is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, sport or exercise. In sports cycling is competitive physical activity using bicycles. There are several categories of bicycle racing and they include artistic cycling, cycle polo, cycle speedway, mountain bike racing, cycle-cross, BMX and track cycling. In South Africa the Cape Town Cycle Tour is the biggest and has seen over 35,000 entrants in recent years and it was the first event in the UCI’s Golden Bike series to be taking placed outside of Europe.

2. Golf

Golf is another popular sport in South Africa. Golf is a club and ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes. South Africa has some of the best golf courses in the world, so it’s not a surprise that golf has been the nation’s most successful individual sport. Initially put on the world of golf map in the 1950s and 1960s when Bobby Locke won the British open 4 times in just 9 years, the country’s reputation as a golfing power was only further started in the 70s with the rise of Gary Player. The Black Knight remains just one of the 5 players on the modern history of Golf game to win all 4 majors in his career. Since then, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel have all won majors and been recognizable South African faces on the PGA Tour at one point or another.

3. Rugby

Rugby is another good biggest sport in South Africa. Rugby is a contact team sport which is started in England in the 1^st half of the 19^th century. There are more than 4,30,000 South Africans are registered rugby players, and made the rugby sport 2^nd or 3^rd most popular sport in the nation depending on who you ask. Rugby sport played an important role in South Africa’s new, post apartheid era. South Africa conducting their 1^st major international sporting event, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, South Africa’s National Team would overcome their underdog status to improbably win the entire tournament. The image of Nelson Mandela presenting the Webb Ellis Cup to captain Francois Pienaar remains one of the most iconic in the nation’s history.

4. Cricket

Cricket is another excellent popular sport in South Africa. In South Africa cricket is named The Proteas after South Africa’s national flower. In 2012 the South Africa National Cricket Team became the first national team to be ranked number one in all 3 formats of the sport (test, ODI, T20). Even though they have a reputation of being “chokers” on the big stage and have never made it past the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup, ICC World T20, or ICC Champions Trophy tournaments, the cricket sport still has immense popularity in South Africa, especially among English speakers, he Asian/Muslim communities, and Afrikaans-speaking whites.

5. Football

Football is also known as soccer and it Football is another great biggest sport in South Africa. There is estimation that over 2 million South Africans play football and even though the sport fell victim to separation for a century, both Bafana Bafana and the Premier Soccer League are sources of national pride and draw large crowds.  South African is a soccer-crazy country, and it hosted the 2010 World Cup and boosts the game popularity even in future. After the end of separation, South Africa has played in 3 world cups and hosted the 2010 tournament. South Africa was also involved as one of the founding members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), and twice hosted the Africa Cup of Nations tournament, winning the wholw thing in 1996.

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