“It was in our prep before each game, Hong Kong is [also] a three-day tournament, in how we approach things, how we got over jet lag, nutritional strategies”.
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Yet one would do well to remember that if it were not for a Brit, then Fiji’s Rio campaign could have unfolded in a much more similar fashion to seasons past as the culture and ethic in which Ben Ryan has instilled into Fiji sevens is the exact tonic that was needed to fully encapsulate and propel the endearing physical specimens that comprise the Fiji squad in reaching their full potential.
It was an Olympic first in so many ways – a debut for the sport and a first medal, let alone gold, for Fiji. “Everyone is celebrating”, said photographer Feroz Khalil who watched the final on the big screen at the main stadium in Suva.
With a population of around 900,000, Fiji has long punched above its weight in worldwide rugby, particularly in the sevens game which rewards the pace, power and skill of its distinctive brand of play.
Rugby returned to the Olympics this year for the first time since 1924.
“7s in the Olympics and all the joy had today wouldn’t have been possible if not for the late Beth Coalter”, he said, with reference to the World Rugby Sevens Operations Manager who died suddenly in October, aged 59.
Sevens, as we have seen this week, is a more open, unstructured form of the game which lasts only 20 minutes and matches are more likely to be decided by one exceptional player, a breakout or a lucky bounce.
This humbleness masks the fact that rugby sevens is Fiji’s national sport, and that the team already have superstar status in their country.
It also was a good chance for rugby, he said, “to show the Olympic family what we can do with our sport”.
“We’ve had the opportunity and we thank the International Olympic Committee for that”.
“The intensity and the way that South Africa played, right from the very first kick-off, had us on the back heel the whole time”. That may be why rugby is represented there by sevens rather the 15-man game.
NZ Rugby is acting in the best interest of the game when it participates in sevens and calls its team All Blacks.
Fiji has produced some of the greatest players ever to have played the shortened version of the game, such as Waisale Serevi and William Ryder, and their success has allowed the country to wave its flag on the global sporting stage.
Bainimarama said “a wonderful reception awaits our boys when they arrive back in Fiji”. “We are all grateful because it means a lot to the nation not just in terms of sports, but what it does for the morale and spirit of the people with what we have been through with Cyclone Winston earlier this year”.
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As far as Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is concerned, rugby has earned its place at the Olympics. “Never have we stood so tall as a nation”.
