Nobody has ever really explained why. This Heritage Month, Red Bull is taking a swing at it.

Launching this September, What We Know is a new four-part documentary series hosted by comedian and broadcaster Eugene Khoza, and directed by the team behind Chasing the Sun widely considered the greatest rugby documentary ever made. That pedigree matters: this isn't a highlight reel, it's a character study.

Khoza, who splits his time between Johannesburg and New York working alongside Trevor Noah, has had a front-row seat to South Africa's improbable winning streak. So he decided to go looking for the source of it himself criss-crossing the country and pairing up unlikely duos along the way: Springboks with skateboarders, MotoGP racers with hockey players, Proteas stars with e-sports pros. All of them wrestling with the same question from wildly different angles.

Each episode of What We Know builds around a different idea creativity, community, the underdog mentality, and diversity. But don't expect Khoza to hand you a neat answer. There's no script, no single hero, and no tidy conclusion. Instead, it's real conversations: athletes, artists, comedians and coaches around a fire or a kitchen table, comparing notes on what actually got them to the top.

The premise, as the directors put it, is that talent and training alone can't explain it South Africa is comparatively under-resourced next to the countries it keeps beating. So there has to be something else. Finding that "something else" means going deeper: meeting families, visiting hometowns, and digging into the places and people that shaped these champions long before the medals arrived.

The series opens in Johannesburg with a lineup built for sparks: spinning champion SamSam Thubane and Springbok fullback Damian Willemse show Khoza how instinct becomes art, joined by b-girl Courtnaé Paul and skateboarder Boipelo Awuah. Around the table, comedian Jason Goliath, TV personality Lerato Phago and artist Karabo Poppy dig into why South Africans seem to turn to creativity because of pressure, not despite it.

Then there's the episode's quiet standout: aerobatic pilot Pat Davidson, a six-time national champion who has flown for South Africa at the World Aerobatic Championships in Osaka. Before pulling nine Gs mid-routine, Davidson hand-sketches every manoeuvre in a private shorthand only he can read. "You write it down, it goes into your head," he says — a habit that once saved his life when an engine failure at just thirty feet left him no time to think, only instinct to fly on.

Episode one is just the opener. Across the series, Khoza sits down with an almost absurd spread of South African sporting royalty: Springbok captain Siya Kolisi, Proteas stars Kagiso Rabada, Temba Bavuma and Laura Wolvaardt, two-time MotoGP race winner Brad Binder, mountain bike world champion Greg Minnaar, pro surfer Jordy Smith, ultra-runner Ryan Sandes, 800m runner Prudence Sekgodiso, strongman Rayno Nel, hockey international Thati Zulu, and Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Themba Zwane plus more from rugby, cricket, motorsport, athletics, gaming and comedy.

Sixteen champions. Five disciplines. One flag. It's the kind of guest list that never sits in the same room until now.

WhwWhat We Know premieres on SABC1, fittingly, on Heritage Day Wednesday, 24 September, at 22h00. It then rolls out weekly:

• Episode 1 — 24 September

• Episode 2 — 1 October

• Episode 3 — 8 October

• Episode 4 (finale) — 15 October

Whatever the answer turns out to be, one thing's already clear: this Heritage Month, South Africa is being asked to look in the mirror and it might just like what it sees.