He took a breath. She unsuccessfully tried to think only of the task ahead of him and not of all the symbolic value he carried. He did not manage to get rid of the emotional burden, but he did achieve the objective. With the conversion of the last try in the Hong Kong Sevens, Gastón Revol broke the barrier of 1000 points on the World Tour and marked a new milestone in his already legendary career with the Pumas 7s jersey. The context could not have been more appropriate. The Argentine national team shook off the lethargy they had in the competition and said goodbye to the Asian competition with a 42-0 victory against Samoa, in which they finally played at the level they are capable of, on the last day of action in an emblematic stadium for the competition.
Once the task was completed at the very end of the match, Revol finally broke down. Through tears, he received a hug from his teammates and recognition from the entire stadium and the entire sevens community. “I’m very happy, but I don’t care about 1000 points. I care about them, but it’s not the most important thing right now. “I am happy to be here, I am happy to be in this stadium,” said Revol, interviewed by international television. “Many things happened, many years. It’s my last time here, for me and for everyone. “I’m happy about that, more than about the 1000 points.”
The headband, far from hiding it, accentuated the vestiges of the battle. At 37 years old, Gastón Revol is the most emblematic player of the Argentine sevens team. Emerging from La Tablada, he joined the team in 2009 and for 15 years he forged an illustrious career, not only for his quality and intelligence in playing rugby, but also for his humility, his constant dedication and his ascendancy over the youngest ones. Recently in Cape Town, at the end of 2022, he had reached 100 events on the World Tour, and now he broke another mark. In the list of Argentine scorers he is only behind the current coach Santiago Gómez Cora (1178).
Revol’s score crowned the Pumas 7s’ best performance in Hong Kong. After two days in which they were unknown, far from the performance that had made them the best team in the world in the first five stages of the season, where they reached three titles and one runner-up. Defeats against the United States and New Zealand on the first day of action, plus a slim victory against Great Britain that did not serve to qualify as best third, relegated them to play for 9th place. They achieved their goal with a resounding victory against the Samoans, although more than that result it is important that they got rid of the bad feeling of the first two days of action and showed themselves that they can play as they had done between the end of the season past and most of this.
With Rodrigo Isgró in best player in the world mode, an award he holds from the previous campaign (he scored three tries), with the attitude to attack the defense with vertical runs and passes in contact, with precision in the passes and an aggressive and suffocating, the Pumas 7s were once again the team that is a candidate to win the title of the season’s champion, which will be defined in the Madrid Sevens at the beginning of June, and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the great objective of this cycle.
Despite the decline in the last two competitions (they came from being fifth in Los Angeles), the Pumas 7s remain at the top of the regular season positions, with 94 points, followed by Ireland (86) and Fiji (76), already with the ticket to Madrid secured and with a stage to play, in a month in Singapore. The way they said goodbye to Hong Kong allows them to regain confidence ahead of the most important segment of the season, and even from the last four years. The most worrying thing, ultimately, is Marcos Moneta’s injury. In the first action of the first match, the Argentine tryman suffered a sprain of his right ankle that caused him to fracture his fibula. Upon return to Argentina, more in-depth studies will be carried out to determine the degree of the injury.
It was a special event, as it marked the farewell to the Hong Kong Stadium, which will be demolished to build a new one. The competition created in 1976 is the most important in the world of sevens. He is the most convening and the most festive in the stands. During the three days of action, the field is packed and the spectators become protagonists with the color and passion they bring to the show. In 1994, the stadium was specially renovated to host this event and since then it has become an iconic setting for the discipline. With capacity for 40,000 spectators, almost always packed, especially on the final day of competition, it was too small, and from 2025 there would be a new stage: the Kai Tak Sports Park, which will have 50,000 seats.
Only once did the Pumas manage to break the barrier of the quarterfinals there: it was in 2004, when they reached the defining match, where they lost to England.
The champion was New Zealand, who defeated France 10-7 in the final. After a very weak start, the champion of the 2022/23 season seems to be regaining its form at the right time. The Pumas once again left empty-handed, but at least they closed with a smile. And an indelible memory for the legendary Gastón Revol.