Behind the fight for medals, in the shadows of the City of Light, Team South Africa’s créme de la créme face an Olympic battle unwinnable to date — breaking the country’s fourth-place hoodoo.
At every Games since South Africa began competing officially at London 1908, the team has suffered at least one fourth place. That’s 19 Games across 116 years, 34 fourths and 51 casualties. That’s more fourths than individual medal colours — 27 gold, 33 silver and 29 bronze.
Sprinter Akani Simbine was the most recent victim, missing the 100m podium at Tokyo 2020 by four-hundredths of a second. That sent the sprinter into a depression. “I just got tired of finishing fourth and not being in the medals,” Simbine, who was fourth at the 2019 world championships, told the Sunday Times before heading to Europe for his final Olympic preparations.
“I didn’t want to do the sport any more ... I had contracts I had to stick to, and I had agreements I had to fulfil, and that was the only reason I stayed. If I hadn’t had those, I would have left,” said the 30-year-old, who has since fought his way back physically and mentally.
Carrying the tag of medal contender means you’re in the danger zone. Nobody wants fourth — it’s the rubbish bin of the podium, the receptacle for the corpses of Titans that have fallen at the foot of Mount Olympus.
Of those who finished fourth, 16 won Olympic silverware. Nine of them had already won their medals, though that didn’t diminish the hurt.
Rower John Smith, who is competing at his fourth Olympics in Paris, was a member of the lightweight four that powered to gold at London 2012. He and James Thompson, another survivor of the four, went to Rio 2016 with high hopes in the lightweight double scull, having won the 2014 world championships — but they ended fourth. “It’s the worst,” said Smith.
“I gave everything I could have physically ... I left it all out there, and I wasn’t good enough on that day to win, and that’s what haunts me the most. It still haunts me to this day. When you think you’re going to win, it’s a different ballgame.”
Fourth is horrible. It’s almost better to come fifth
— Marianne Kriel, swimmer
Marianne Kriel won the 100m backstroke bronze at Atlanta 1996, but two days later was part of the 4x100m medley relay team that ended fourth. “Fourth is horrible. It’s almost better to come fifth.”
Fellow swimmers Ryk Neethling and Chad Le Clos have tasted fourth and fifth, and they both agree.
Neethling finished fifth in the 1,500m freestyle at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000. The first time he was chuffed, having finished 20-odd places above his seeding, but on the second occasion, though he again swam a personal best, his performance was below his expectations.
There was a tinge of disappointment, he admitted, but nothing like when he ended fourth in the 100m freestyle at Athens 2004. “It’s heartbreaking, you know. When you watch the cricket, it’s a little bit like that feeling,” he said, referring to the recent T20 World Cup final, in which the Proteas were beaten by India.
“You probably never get a chance like that. You have to wait four more years ... I think what makes these World Cups and Olympics so stressful is that in many cases it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can sugarcoat it now, 20 years later, but it still hurts.”
Le Clos ended fifth in the 200m butterfly in Tokyo, but admitted it was a good result given the amount of training he’d been able to do during the build-up, hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. “The fourth place was a devastating result,” recalled Le Clos, who lost his 200m butterfly crown in 2016 to US legend Michael Phelps, the man he had dethroned four years earlier.
“I feel like if we run that back, I win it every other time ... Does it still hurt? It hurts very bad,” he said, adding he got a measure of redemption by winning the 200m butterfly at the 2017 world championships three-hundredths of a second faster than Phelps’s time the year before.
Brazil was where South Africa had its biggest haul of fourth places, with four.
In two cases, South Africans finished fourth and third in the same event. One was triathlete Richard Murray, behind Henri Schoeman in Rio, and the other was Sarah Poewe, behind Penny Heyns in the 100m breaststroke at Sydney 2000.
Poewe switched allegiance to Germany, winning a relay medal four years later.
Another fourth-placed Olympian who made Germany his home was the country’s most notorious traitor, boxer Robey Leibbrandt, who fell in love with Nazi ideals at Berlin 1936. He returned to South Africa during World War 2 and quickly became front-page news when he was hunted down by police and later tried for treason.
One person who testified was named by the Rand Daily Mail only as Meiring, a teacher Leibbrandt happened to meet in the small Namaqualand town of Garies soon after landing on the West Coast.
But 81 years later, Meiring’s grandson, Rocco, is an ace swimming coach, mentoring stars such as Tatjana Smith, Pieter Coetzé and Kaylene Corbett — all of them fourth-place contenders too.
Welterweight boxer Duggie Du Preez is arguably the country’s bravest fourth-placed competitor, fighting for the bronze at London 1948 with an injured hand and wearing an eye patch.
Of South Africa’s 16 fourth-placed medallists, seven graduated from fourth to the podium. The waiting period varies from a few days — which was the case for athlete Charles Hefferon at London 1908 and swimmer Joan Harrison, who became South Africa’s youngest Olympic champion at 16 at Helsinki 1952 — to eight years for shooters George Harvey and Robert Bodley at Antwerp 1920.
Race-walker Cecil McMaster has the unique distinction of being the only South African to have endured two fourth places, having missed out in the 3km and 10km races in 1920. He went to Paris 1924, where he was briefly pushed into fourth place, before fighting back to take the bronze.
Perhaps Simbine, like McMaster a century ago, can find redemption in Paris.
Maybe this time Team South Africa can break the curse.
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