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Rio de Janeiro - The joy of winning an Olympic bronze medal far outweighs the disappointment of missing out on gold for Blitzboks captain Kyle Brown.
South Africa lost 7-5 to Great Britain on Thursday in the semi-finals of the first ever Olympic Sevens tournament, ruling them out of the final.
They then smashed Japan 54-14 to win bronze, but there was an overwhelming feeling of what might have been had they taken on eventual winners Fiji for gold.
Brown acknowledged that the side was extremely disappointed at having lost their semi-final, but he said that he was immensely proud with how they had fought back with their heads held high in the match for third.
"It's incredibly special," Brown said on being an Olympic medalist.
"We were completely heartbroken after that semi-final. It took a lot for us to bounce back. There were some really heavy heads in the change-room after that semi-final.
"It was a tough way to go down to Great Britain but that is Sevens rugby and that's why people come out here to sit on the stands on the edge of their seats."
Brown said that the pride of being a medalist helped extinguish the pain of losing out on a chance to contest for gold.
"After you lose that game you sit there and you ponder about what you could have done differently and what went wrong," he said.
"We lost the game 7-5, we were bitterly disappointed and we had to get over it. we're going home with a medal and we're incredibly proud to be representing South Africa at the Olympic Games."
Brown added that he would be looking at staying on with the Blitzboks.
"It's a great place to be and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," he said.
Lloyd Burnard is Sport24's correspondent in Rio de Janeiro for the duration of the 2016 Olympics ...
