I'm also delighted that women's rugby will feature in the Games, not least because of my long experience coaching women and the fact that my wife is a player!
Rugby union is played in more than 100 countries, from Andorra to Zambia. Many of the smaller nations already use sevens as a stepping stone to the full 15-a-side version of the game. As the Sevens World Series so often shows, the standard of play throughout the world is steadily increasing.
An Olympic sevens tournament will only inspire smaller nations to improve further and encourage more people to get involved at the grass roots of the game, whether as players, coaches, officials or supporters.
Fifteen-a-side rugby union is a tough, physical, contact sport. Players need plenty of time between games to rest and recover from bumps and bruises, making it impossible to fit a meaningful tournament into the duration of the Olympic Games.
In contrast, sevens still has plenty of contact, but the shorter matches and the emphasis on ball handling and exciting open running place a greater emphasis on speed and agility. Players in sevens tournaments usually take part in more than one game each day, making the format ideally suited to the Games.
Indeed, sevens is a perfect fit for the Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger) – although you don’t always see that every time my team takes to the field on a Saturday afternoon!
My Olympics
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