After 21 years in the wilderness, South Africa were readmitted to the Olympic fold by the International Olympic Council on this date in 1991, thus paving the way for athletes from that country to participate in the Barcelona Olympics the following year.
South Africa had previously last taken part in the 1960 Games in Rome with an all-white team, and were expelled from the Olympic movement in 1970 for apartheid, their racially discriminatory policy. Almost as a direct result of their expulsion by the IOC, South Africa became somewhat of a pariah in international sport across the globe.
The readmission was made possible by the South African parliament repealing principal apartheid statutes in June of 1991 under the stewardship of then President FW de Klerk. Once the IOC opened their doors, other sporting bodies soon followed suit. The South African cricket team under Clive Rice made a historic first tour of India in November 1991 for three One-Day Internationals, their first international cricketing engagements since 1970.
“It is a very important day, not only for the Olympic movement but for all sports around the world,” Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the IOC, had said while welcoming South Africa back into the fold. “I would like to see very soon athletes and players from South Africa taking part in major sports competition around the world.”
That dream was to soon be fulfilled as South African athletes left their mark across disciplines, fueled by their exhilarating charge to the rugby World Cup title in their own backyard in 1995, by which time the iconic Nelson Mandela had taken over as President.
