Rugby Selected for 2016 Olympics
Sevens Rugby Chosen alongside Golf as new Olympic Sport
The recommendation of the two sports came at the expense of softball, squash, baseball, karate and roller sports and will need to be rubber stamped by the IOC Congress when they meet in Copenhagen in October when the venue of the 2016 Olympiad will also be announced.
2016 will be the fifth time that an Olympic gold medal has been awarded; rugby was included in the Olympics from 1900 through to 1924, when the USA beat France 17-3 in the final of a competition which also included Romania.
Whereas the 1924 champions competed in the full fifteen-a-side version of the game, the 2016 medals will be awarded in the seven-a-side game. Full format rugby is simply too physically demanding a sport to be completed within the schedule for an Olympics, whereas the Sevens game provides a truncated, exciting format which can be played over three days and can utilise the Olympic Stadium rather than needing a special arena.
The efforts of the IRB to globalise the game in recent years, using Sevens as its flagship product in countries with no tradition in the sport has been a spectacular success. The inauguration of the IRB World Sevens circuit has seen the number of competing countries expand and several new countries rising to prominence.
Another Olympic box was recently ticked when the inaugural Women’s World Cup was played alongside the men’s competition, the Melrose Cup. The tournament, held in Dubai, was played in front of a number of dignitaries from the IOC and was considered a great success, which surely played a major part in the today’s success.
The IRB also showed a flexibility which would have been taken well by the visiting delegates. They offered to make the Olympics the pinnacle of the sport by disbanding the Melrose Cup competition. This is one of the key criteria of the Olympic movement for any of its sports or potential sports.
British Lions in the Olympics
The playing of Sevens in the Olympics raises an interesting conundrum for the British selectors. There has always been an issue with Britain entering a football team into the Olympics because each of the home unions has a separate vote in FIFA. It was only circumvented in 2012 by the agreement of the home nations that only English players will be selected.
Rugby has no such issues, but when the Home Unions come together every four years as the Lions team, the players who make up the squad are selected from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as is the Ireland Sevens team. It is assumed that the Republic of Ireland would enter their own team, whereas the home Unions select from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
However it is done, one thing is for certain, rugby will be exposed to a whole new audience across the world who cannot help to be captivated by the speed and power of the Sevens game. Hopefully it will inspire a host of new players of all ages to lace on a pair of boots and try the game.
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