2024-07-23 22:26:08
Schedule, participants and favourites of the main start of the four-year period.
As reported by İdman.biz with reference to “Championship”, on Wednesday, July 24, the Olympic rugby-7 tournament will start in Paris. The first matches will be played before the official opening ceremony of the Games. Rugby players will be among the first athletes to start at the Olympics.
A dynamic and fast sport
The 2016 Olympic silver medalist, Englishman Tom Mitchell, who became a journalist after finishing his playing career, said: “Sevens is an ideal Olympic sport, where, according to statistics, an attempt is recorded every 73 seconds. Even zoomers can endure a 14-minute match.”
Indeed, rugby sevens is the most dynamic sport. Since the games last only two halves of seven minutes, players can give it their all and show incredible speed. And the small number of players on the court gives a fast attack an advantage over the defense, so in short matches of rugby sevens, no fewer points are scored and attempts are scored than in the classic version of the game in two halves of 40 minutes.
Who has won the Olympics before?
In Paris, the men’s and women’s rugby sevens medal events will be played out for the third time in history. However, it should not be forgotten that even before the Second World War, the Games programme included competitions in classic rugby. The last champion in this sport was the US team in 1924, which beat the French in the final of the home Olympics.
In the modern era, Fiji has won two gold medals: in 2016, they beat Great Britain, and in 2021, they beat New Zealand.
In the battles of women’s teams, the first Olympic champion title in rugby-7 was won by the girls from Australia, who beat New Zealand. But at the Games in Tokyo, the New Zealanders still reached the gold, defeating the French in the final.
Rugby Sevens Tournament Schedule and Participants
The rugby tournament games will be held at the famous Stade de France stadium in Saint-Denis near Paris, where the Rugby World Cup battles took place last autumn. The men’s teams will start first.
Rugby 7 at the 2024 Olympics. Participants of the men’s tournament
Group A: New Zealand, Ireland, Japan, South Africa.
Group B: Australia, Argentina, Kenya, Samoa.
Group C: France, Fiji, Uruguay, USA.
On the first game day (July 24), the group stage matches will be held. On July 25, the final matches in the groups, as well as the semi-finals for 9th-12th places and the quarter-finals will be held. There will be no matches on the opening day of the Games, July 26. And on July 27, the decisive matches will be held and the medalists will be known.
Rugby 7 at the 2024 Olympics. Participants of the women’s tournament
Group A: New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, China.
Group B: Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa.
Group C: France, USA, Brazil, Japan.
The women’s tournament begins the following day, July 28. Unlike the men’s tournament, there will be no opening break, so we will find out the new Olympic champions on the evening of July 30.
The main star is the Frenchman Antoine Dupont
The stadium in Saint-Denis will host 288 of the best rugby-7 players from around the world. The main star is Frenchman Antoine Dupont. He is not the first and certainly not the last rugby-15 player who has decided to fight for Olympic medals. However, after the failure of the French national team at the home World Cup in classic rugby, Dupont’s desire to win only increased. Having achieved club success with Toulouse (his club won both the championship in the Top-14 and the Champions Cup), Antoine put on the rugby-7 rugby team jersey, and France won the World Series for the first time in 19 years. Objectively, the best rugby player on the planet is very determined about the home Olympics.
Who else to watch in the men’s tournament?
Fijians are going for their third Olympic gold medal. Jerry Tuvai has a great opportunity to stand on the top step of the podium again and inspire even more Fijian kids, for whom he has long been a national hero. Like many Fijian families, Jerry’s parents had to save up for a long time to buy their son his first rugby boots. So even now, to remember those times, he writes “fork” and “knife” in Fijian on each new pair, in memory of his mother’s words: “This is your life – your fork and knife.”
Three years ago, World Rugby already named him the Rugby Sevens Player of the Decade, but Jerry Tuwai has no plans to stop there.
Who to watch in the women’s tournament?
Legendary New Zealander Portia Woodman-Wickliffe has announced that she will retire from international competition on July 31. She dreams of standing on the Olympic podium one more time. She recently turned 33 and already has two Olympic medals to her credit: silver in Rio and gold in Tokyo.
The 36-year-old Australian Sharni Smale (Williams) also announced her retirement. She, Charlotte Kaslik, Maddison and Teagan Levy won gold medals in Rio in 2016. In Paris, they will be joined by five Olympic debutants. The Australians have had a brilliant season. It is curious that they chose the famous lines from the song by the French singer Edith Piaf as their motto: “Non, je ne regrette rien” (“I regret nothing”). And the team’s head coach Tim Welsh says that regardless of the result, the team is going to give it their all and not regret anything.
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