Siya Kolisi

Siya Kolisi was born in Zwide, a township outside Port Elizabeth, to a mother who was 16 and a father who was rarely present. His grandmother raised him and he has talked about going to bed hungry, eating sugar water, and sleeping on cushions on the floor. Rugby was played on dirt pitches in the township, and he was good enough at 12 to be spotted by Grey High School, one of the best schools in the country, which offered him a scholarship.

He arrived speaking little English and feeling out of place among boys who had never wanted for anything. His mother died when he was 15. He kept playing, joined the Western Province academy, and made his debut for the Springboks in 2013.

In 2018 Rassie Erasmus named him captain, the first Black player to lead the team in 127 years of South African Test rugby. The Springboks were in poor shape and the appointment was called tokenism by some. Eighteen months later he lifted the World Cup in Japan after beating England in the final, an image that meant a great deal in a country where rugby had long been a symbol of white rule.

He tore a knee ligament in April 2023 and was thought to be out of that year's World Cup. He recovered in time and captained the side to a second successive title in Paris, winning three knockout games by a single point each. He and his wife run a foundation working on hunger and gender-based violence in South Africa.