Fiji defeated Great Britain 43-7 in a sensational final that made history at the Deodoro Stadium.
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It was a sensational and hugely popular conclusion to the first rugby tournament at the Olympics since 1924.
The silver was Great Britain’s 16th medal at Rio. “We have won our first gold medal at a summer Olympic Games and every Fijian is rejoicing at home and around the world”.
After ensuring the victory that had been in the making since the International Olympic Committee in 2009 added Fiji’s national sport to the program for Rio de Janeiro, Kolinisau and his teammates huddled solemnly in the middle of the field and sang a hymn. “There are another ten days of competition remaining and already Scots have won six medals, only one short of our best ever away Olympic Games medal tally set in Sydney 2000”.
As the historic Olympic gold medal victory celebrations continue, Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama has confirmed to Fijivillage from Rio that we will have a public holiday for Fiji’s memorable win. Even before the game, stories emerged detailing how some of their players turned down lucrative contracts in order to represent the island nation at the Olympics.
To top it all off, prime minister Frank Bainimaram said there would be a national holiday on August 22 to celebrate the historic win. The gold medal rugby match “brought the nation of 900,000 people to a standstill”, according to the Telegraph, with schools and business closing so residents could watch the match.
Their pride on seeing the Fijian flag flown to celebrate their win while they belted out their anthem.
Britain looked shell-shocked and Fiji added two more tries, with Dan Norton’s score little consolation for GB. We always knew we would have 10 weeks to make this work, and we had a lot of rugby in the build-up.
South Africa soundly beat Japan for bronze but the Japanese team played its part to promote the game with its shocking opening win over powerhouse New Zealand.
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“The entire nation, young, old, men, women, children and adults and people from across the political divide will come together in celebration”.
