You could call them the Siya Kolisi and Bongi Mbonambi of sheep shearing. It was a proud and emotional moment when South Africa’s two shearing world champions, Bonile Rabela and Teboho Nyatsa, were honoured for their exceptional performance by Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen, today, 24 April.
By Marise Schoonraad, journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
Steenhuisen, on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, thanked South Africa’s shearing team for their exceptional achievements in New Zealand during the 2026 Golden Shears in Masterson.
“We are not simply marking a win here. We are marking a sustained standard of excellence that very few countries in any field are able to maintain,” said Steenhuisen as he congratulated Bonile Rabela (shearer), Teboho Nyatsa (shearer), Izak Klopper (team manager) and Andries Pretorius (judge).
The South African team has been crowned world champions for the sixth time in a row. “To be world champions once is a massive achievement, but to stay there year after year and compete against some of the best in the world requires something far deeper,” said Steenhuisen. “This type of discipline and excellence represents South Africa’s incredible agricultural sector on the world stage and reflects the resilience of our entire industry,” he said.
Steenhuisen says when his department read about the team’s incredible achievements, they as a department decided it was important to give these achievements the recognition they deserve.
Rabela and Nyatsa are not only skilled professionals, but also elite athletes in one of the most physically demanding and precise disciplines in agriculture and it is important that this achievement receives recognition for that, says Steenhuisen.
“You have won more than just a title; you have set a standard and demonstrated how capable South African agriculture is.”
The achievement reflects the quality of South Africa’s training systems and the incredible depth of talent that exists within South African agriculture, said Steenhuisen.
To Beat New Zealand On Their Home Ground
“For a South African nothing beats the feeling of beating New Zealand,” said Izak Klopper, the team manager of the SA team that represented South Africa at the Golden Shear Championships in New Zealand. He got tears in his eyes as he spoke about the team’s experience in New Zealand. The team had left for New Zealand early on to prepare the men for the championship in Masterson. Five days before the championships, the team worked and sheared on a sheep farm. We worked hard, said Klopper, who himself had to be a “sheepdog” in the run-up to the championships.
The sheep were prepared for Rabela and Nyatsa as they would be at the competition. The two would then shear the sheep and afterwards, Klopper and the team would assess the sheep and see where the two could improve. It reminds one of the Springboks’ preparation for the World Cup Rugby in the series Chasing the Sun. Or in shearing terms, Chasing the Shear.
To get the shearing time to 48 seconds on a sheep requires hard work, says Klopper. At the competition, the strategy sessions continued and the team worked mticulously to keep the time as low as possible to shear the sheep well while also delivering quality work. “The Kiwi still thought they were ahead of us and then we were there with him,” says Klopper. The men practiced speed and could handle the pressure, he says. That’s also how Bonile won – through quality and speed, said Klopper. He worked hard to maintain his position as world champion in the hand shearing division.
To add to the pressure, Rabela suffered an injury during the competition when he cut himself while shearing, Klopper said. His finger was twice its normal size due to swelling. They immediately took him to a clinic where he was given antibiotics.
“I would wake him up at 2 in the morning and tell him to take his pills,” said Klopper. And Rabela pulled through. He was crowned the world champion and he did it with a sore hand.
The fact that we have such young representatives on the world stage tells us the future of shearing in South Africa is promising, said Klopper. It is also a privilege for the team to receive this type of recognition for the first time since 1996, said Klopper, thanking the minister and also expressing his appreciation to Cape Wool SA and the National Wool Growers’ Association (NWGA) for all the support the organisation has received.
“There is probably no harder job than shearing,” said Klopper. “That is why we need to look after our young shearers.”
Dan Kriek, general manager of the NWGA, added how Rabela and Nyatsa’s success speaks to the potential in the wool sector. “This is a sector with enormous potential that can still be cultivated,” Kriek said.
The potential that lies with communal farmers in particular must be developed together with the Department of Agriculture, said Kriek. “In doing so, we will not only establish successful farms, but also successful farmers.”
