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The World Cup was the first major sporting event to take place in South Africa following the end of apartheid. It was also the first in which the South African national team was allowed to compete; the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB, now the International Rugby Board) had only allowed the readmittance of South Africa to international rugby in 1992, following negotiations to end apartheid. The World Cup would also be the last major event of rugby union's amateur era; two months after the tournament, the IRFB opened the sport to professionalism. The World Cup would be marred by an accident that took place during the pool stage of the tournament. Three minutes into a match between Côte d'Ivoire and Tonga, the Ivorian winger Max Brito was crushed beneath several other players. Despite intensive care, Brito was left paralyzed below the neck. At the World Cup Final, held at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on 24 June, South Africa defeated New Zealand 15 - 12, with Joel Stransky scoring a drop goal in extra time to win the match. Following South Africa's victory, Nelson Mandela, the President of South Africa, wearing a Springbok rugby shirt and cap, presented the Webb Ellis Cup to the South African captain François Pienaar. Mandela and Pienaar's involvement in the World Cup is the subject of the 2009 film Invictus, and the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary The 16th Man in 2010. |
