South Africa's Men's team finished 9th at the 2026 UPBF Paintball World Championship, five places better than a year earlier and level with its best result since 2018.
A day of two halves
South Africa played its four preliminary games in Group D on Wednesday 2 September, split across two fields.
| Time | Field | Opponent | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11:30 | NXL Pro | Belgium | Lost 2–4 |
| 13:20 | NXL Pro | Great Britain | Lost 3–4 |
| 15:05 | Tomahawk | Switzerland | Won 4–0 |
| 16:50 | Tomahawk | Malta | Won 4–1 |
The day began on the NXL Pro field, where both games were shown on the live webcast, so supporters at home could watch them as they happened. The margins were thin. Belgium took the opener 4–2, and Great Britain followed with a 4–3 win, decided by a single point. Over those two games South Africa lost by a combined three points.
The move to the Tomahawk field changed the picture. South Africa shut out Switzerland 4–0, then beat Malta 4–1, conceding one point across the two games. Over the four games the team scored 13 points and conceded nine.
The result
The UPBF competition history record lists South Africa 9th in Men for 2026. A year earlier, at the 2025 championship on 27 and 28 August, the Men finished 14th of 18 teams.
The 9th place equals South Africa's Men's result in 2019 and is the best since the 8th of 2018. The national Men's team's highest finish remains the 4th place of 2015, which you can read about in South Africa finishes 4th at the Paintball World Cup 2015. The full record, from 2013 to 2026, is on the results page.
Watch the games
The championship was streamed live on YouTube. South Africa played all of its games on the Wednesday and did not play on the Thursday. The first stream covers the opening ceremony and Wednesday's preliminary games, and the second covers Thursday's games through to the finals.
The photos
The photos below were taken at the championship by Facefull and its collaborators Olivia Roux and Erik Chateau, and are used with credit as the photographers ask.
