Legendary South African rugby player Chester Williams, the only black member of the post-apartheid side that won the World Cup on home soil in 1995, carried the Olympic torch in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba on Thursday (14 July).

Williams played a key part in the memorable World Cup-winning campaign, the first time that the Springboks participated in the tournament. South Africa hosted the competition one year after Nelson Mandela was elected president and the country's apartheid regime was consigned to the past. Williams's try-scoring feats on the wing, and the sight of President Mandela in a Springbok jersey at the World Cup final, became powerful symbols of a new chapter in the country's history.

Healing the past

Williams said in Brazil on Thursday, with just three weeks to go until the start of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, that he believed sport could help bring different races together and heal wounds of the past.

"You only have to look at the symbolism of the Olympic rings," he said. "Unity, excellence, respect. When the Games begin, we will see athletes competing in union. And that is what people want to see. 

"Carrying the torch today has been amazing. This torch stands for friendship. I am very proud and honoured to be here. I can't explain the feeling I have – it comes very close to when we won the World Cup."

 Williams played 27 games for the Springboks and scored 14 tries (Photo: Rio 2016/André Luiz Mello)

Williams said his presence in the World Cup-winning side and President Mandela's visible support for the Springboks, historically a team dominated by whites and supported mainly by the ruling class, had helped bring South Africans together.

"After we won the World Cup, it was amazing to see people after the game crying and hugging each other in disbelief . It was the first time that I saw a united nation in South Africa," he said. "It was so important for me to see that through sport and rugby we could unite the nation.

"Mandela came into the changing room before the final, told us he was our biggest fan and shook all our hands. When we went outside we played for Nelson Mandela, our president. He was the most peaceful and intelligent man."

The story of the historic World Cup victory was told by Clint Eastwood in the 2009 film 'Invictus'. McNiel Hendricks, a former rugby player, plays Williams in the film, with Morgan Freeman in the role of Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon playing Springbok captain François Pienaar.

Favourites in Rio

Williams carried the Olympic torch with rugby on the verge of ending a 92-year wait and returning to the Olympic Games, in the faster seven-a-side version of the sport. On 6 August, Rio will play host to the first Olympic rugby match since 1924, when the French and Spanish women's side face off in the Deodoro Stadium.

Williams was coach of the first ever Springboks sevens team. In Brazil on Thursday, he said rugby was a natural fit for the Olympic Games and that its presence in Rio would help grow the sport globally.

"It's amazing that rugby sevens is part of the Olympics. It's an opportunity for rugby to show that we have all the Olympic values; respect, enjoyment and excellence, plus the balance between body, mind and spirit."

Spectator guide to rugby sevens at Deodoro Stadium

The Springboks will be among the top seeds in Rio and have been drawn in a group with Australia, France and Spain. The full schedule of matches for both the men’s and women’s events was confirmed last week.  

"People are going to love sevens in the Olympics. It's a short, exciting game," Williams said. "I would love South Africa to win it, but there will be tough competition from New Zealand, Fiji, Australia and Great Britain."