Vast sporting tributes for Nelson Mandela

Recalling his first meeting with a still imprisoned Mandela in 1986 and away from the media spotlight, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser said Mandela's first question was about cricket and the man regarded as that sport's greatest player.

"His first remark to me, after hello, was ... 'Mr. Fraser is Donald Bradman still alive?"'

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, left, poses with England's soccer captain, David Beckham, in Johannesburg. South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013, that Mandela has died. He was 95. [Photo/icpress.cn]

Fraser later brought him a bat signed by Bradman. Cricket's finest batsman had written "in recognition of a great unfinished innings" on the bat.

What Mandela did with rugby at that 1995 World Cup final is one of sport's defining moments and enshrined in the new South Africa's conscience.

By pulling on the green and gold jersey of the Springboks, the national team previously all-white and associated with the apartheid regime, Mandela signaled to all South Africans that they should unite. His presentation of the trophy to the Springboks' blonde captain Francois Pienaar provided a lasting image of reconciliation that politics just couldn't match.  

"It was our privilege to have lived in this country during his lifetime," South African Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins said in a statement. After 1995, Mandela commonly referred to the team that had previously been boycotted abroad for its associations with apartheid as "my beloved Springboks."

Current Springboks captain Jean de Villiers said: "His presence at a test match just lifted the crowd and energized the team _ it is actually hard to describe."

Even for New Zealand's losing rugby captain on that famous June day in 1995, Sean Fitzpatrick, Mandela's effect was too momentous not to appreciate.

"Afterwards, when we were driving back to our hotel crying, to see the sheer enjoyment of everyone running down the streets ... black, white, colored, whatever they were, just arm in arm celebrating sport," Fitzpatrick said. "He saw the bigger picture."