Flags at half‐mast as Durban remembers giants

Durban has been plunged into a black week of grief with the passing of several prominent community figures whose contributions spanned sport, culture, media and public life. Johannesburg’s media fraternity is also in mourning following the recent death of veteran editor Joe Latakgomo. On Durban’s northern flank, the prestigious Mount Edgecombe Estate — home to one of South Africa’s iconic golf courses — lowered its flag to half‐mast in honour of Kiruban Dhanpal Naidoo (1944–2026), a long-standing resident, former club captain and low‐handicap golfer.

The estate, built on the former sugar cane fields of the now‐bankrupted 134‐year‐old Tongaat‐Hulett Group, paid tribute to a man whose life intertwined with sport at every turn. Naidoo, 82, died this week. His brother‐in‐law, Moga Pillay, former chairperson of the Gold Circle Racing and Gambling Club at Greyville, described the gesture as “a fitting tribute to one of the estate’s best‐known residents and a former 1960s athletic champion”.

The Naidoo family’s involvement in horse‐racing and betting tattersalls spans more than six decades, a legacy inherited from his father, Dhanpal Naidoo, president of the anti‐apartheid provincial athletics association at Currie’s Fountain. It was there that the young Kiruban shattered sprint records in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m — achievements denied national recognition under apartheid. Durban-born Sam Ramsamy, the anti‐apartheid sports crusader credited by former president Nelson Mandela for isolating apartheid South Africa from world sport, recalled meeting Naidoo in London after he migrated to pursue a coaching career.

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“I was profoundly saddened to learn of Kiruban’s passing. I officiated as a starter at many championships in which he competed — and he never lost. He was a brilliant athlete whose opportunities were brutally limited by apartheid.

That was the barrier,” he said. Attorney Krish Naidoo, Mandela’s lawyer and co-architect of the post‐apartheid National Sports Council and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, echoed the sentiment: “We have lost a great athlete whose early potential was robbed by apartheid policies.” Former athlete Rashaardt Williams added that Naidoo should be remembered as one of KwaZulu‐Natal’s “forgotten legends” whose achievements were obscured by segregation. Since 2023, Naidoo has worked to reclaim the stories of non‐racial sports pioneers.

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