The South African national rugby sevens team competes in the

World Rugby Sevens Series The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...

, the Rugby World Cup Sevens, the

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

and the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

. Overall, the team has won the

4 times, as well as having won 39 tournaments in the series.

History

After readmission to international sport following the ending of the apartheid ban, the team played their first sevens series in the 1993 Hong Kong Sevens, and also participated in the

1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens was held at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, Scotland, in April 1993. This tournament was the inaugural Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament. The International Rugby Board invited the established rugby union nations but als ...

. They also played in the Hong Kong Sevens for the next two seasons. In 1996, they also took part in the

Punta Del Este Sevens The Uruguay Sevens, branded as Seven Punta, is an annual international rugby sevens tournament. Currently held in the capital Montevideo, it was hosted as the Punta del Este Sevens in the resort city of the same name for three decades from 1989 ...

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

and the Dubai Sevens. They participated in the

1997 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 1997 Rugby World Cup Sevens was the second edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament and the first to be held in Hong Kong. It was the last major sporting event to be held in the then British dependency before the transfer of sovereig ...

the following year as well as in 1998, they played three South American tournaments – the Mar Del Plata Sevens in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, the Punta Del Este Sevens and the Viña del Mar Sevens in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. 1999 saw them participate in the Mar Del Plata Sevens, the Santiago Sevens in Chile, the

Fiji Sevens The Fiji Sevens, also known as the Suva Sevens is an international rugby union sevens tournament held at the National Stadium in Suva, Fiji. It was a part of the Sevens World Series in 2000, but in the wake of the Fijian coup d'état later tha ...

, the Hong Kong Sevens, the

Japan Sevens The Japan Sevens, also known as the Tokyo Sevens, is an annual rugby sevens tournament held at the Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. It was a part of the Sevens World Series from 2000 to 2001 and from 2012 to 2015. History The fi ...

and the

Paris Sevens The France Sevens, also called the Paris Sevens, is an annual international rugby sevens tournament that is one of ten competitions on the annual World Rugby Sevens Series. The France Sevens is generally held in May or June on the weekend foll ...

. At the end of 1999, the first

(then the IRB Sevens World Series) started and the team have been participating in that series ever since. In addition to the Sevens Series, they also played in the Rugby World Cup Sevens, the

, the

World Games The World Games are an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. They are usually held every four years, one year after a Summer Olympic Games, over the course of 11 d ...

and, from 2016 onwards, the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

. The team's nickname, "Blitzboks", is derived from "blitz" an Afrikaans word meaning lightning, and the derivative of Springbok ("Bok"), the official emblem of the South African rugby team.

Tournament history

Summer Olympics

Rugby World Cup Sevens

Commonwealth Games

World Games

World Rugby Sevens Series

Series wins

South Africa won the following editions on the Sevens World Series since its inception in 1999–2000:

Series tournament wins

South Africa won the following tournaments on the Sevens World Series since its inception in 1999–2000: 39 Tournament wins (up to 31/01/2022)

Current season

Players

Current squad

The following players featured in the

2018–19 World Rugby Sevens Series The 2018–19 World Rugby Sevens Series, known for sponsorship reasons as the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, was the 20th annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The World Rugby Sevens Series, Sevens Seri ...

Previous squads

The previous South African Sevens squads are as follows:

Player records

The following tables show the leading career South Africa players based on statistics from the

. Players in bold are still active.

References

External links

Official websiteWorldRugby profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:South Africa national rugby sevens team National rugby sevens teams sevens

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...