Fijiana – the country’s women’s team – starts its competition Saturday, while the men begin their campaign Tuesday.
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HSBC, for instance, has identified the United States as the growth market for rugby sevens and expect the Olympics to spark massive interest in the game stateside, particularly among women, and help the Americans become a world-class sevens-playing nation. “One of those is the neck roll, where a head is grabbed on the way into the ruck and it creates a risky situation where the player who is grabbed has to roll away, as they otherwise know they could get hurt very badly”. “We drew with the No. 1 and we just lost by five points to the No. 2”. “We made it hard for ourselves, not playing to our strengths, getting a bit too ahead of ourselves, and wanting to score on the first phase when we needed to play three or four. It is such an exciting sport”.
“One by one, they came in and one by one I told them their fate and to a man they were outstanding in the way they took their news”, Ryan recalled. The dream was kind of put on the back-burner because I ended up in a sport that wasn’t part of the Olympics, so I shifted my goal to the World Cups, which is the next biggest thing in sport.
The top two teams from each pool qualify for the knockout rounds, along with the two best third-placed sides at the 15,000-capacity Deodoro stadium.
“Being here, in a Latin country, in South America (where rugby wasn’t very popular), is a great statement”, Pichot said.
“Sevens is a amusing game, you can lose a game on the bounce of a ball or a referee decision”.
“Five years ago that was nearly non-existent, especially in Canada”.
“The World Series this season proved how competitive the women’s rugby sevens circuit is and we’re very much looking forward to competing against the very best as a Team GB squad”.
Waisale Serevi, one of the greatest sevens exponents of all time, is a proud Fijian who knows what the OIympic team is facing.
It’s been a real noticeable difference in them and they seem to have now gone on to the next level.
“But now to get this many talented players here together in this one Team GB and creating an awesome spirit with Rio on the horizon, I’m very, very proud and very, very excited”. However, Pratt will be out there on the pitch in a different context and has been building up for the showpiece event for some time. It is 92 years since rugby last featured in the Olympics, and former England captain Beaumont knows a glorious chance exists to seize the moment. She played for the Watsonians Ladies XV and also won two Scotland XV-a-side caps. It’s fun, everybody touches the ball and the sky is the limit for what it’s going to mean to us. “We would not say we are definitely going to win gold, but that is the ultimate aim”.
Unlike golf the rugby world appears to have relished its participation in the Olympics and the spin-off benefits for the women’s game could be huge.
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“The good thing is that all of the female referees from around the world talk to each other when we are at various tournaments and we are always exchanging ideas, passing on tips and encouraging each other”.
