Rugby union
returned to the Olympic Games this week after an absence of 92 years, when the
women’s seven-a-side tournament was staged in Rio de Janiero. Australia’s Pearls
won the gold medal, beating New Zealand 24-17 in today’s final. Canada won the
bronze and the United States finished fifth.
Tomorrow the
men’s tournament kicks off. The last time rugby was in the Olympics, in Paris
in 1924, the United States retained the title by comfortably beating France in
the final. The US had also beaten France to win the gold medal at the 1920
Antwerp Olympics. Australia won in London in 1908 and France in Paris in 1900.
The United States which won in Paris in 1924
It could be
said that while rugby’s road to Olympic redemption has ended in Rio, its start
was in an equally non-rugby setting: Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Rugby sevens
became a Commonwealth Games event in 1998, and the tournament in KL, won by New
Zealand on September 14 that year, was such an enormous success it undoubtedly laid
the first stones on the yellow brick road to Rio.
I covered
that 1998 event, and in more than 40 years of writing about international
sport, have seldom experienced such a wonderful sporting occasion. New Zealand
beat Fiji 21-12 in the final, with Australia taking the bronze. The New Zealand team included the legendary Jonah
Lomu, as well as Amasio Valence, Bruce Reihana, Caleb Ralph, Christian Cullen, Dallas
Seymour, Eric Rush, Joeli Vidiri, Rico Gear and Roger Randle. Fiji was led by
the irrepressible Waisale Serevi. Australia had the likes of David Campese, Ipolito
Fenukitau and Jim Williams.
The late, great Jonah Lomu, centre, performs the haka to celebrate gold.
New Zealand went to win the
next three Commonwealth Games sevens gold medals, in Manchester in 2002
(again beating Fiji in the final), in Melbourne in 2006 (beating England)
and in Delhi in 2010 (beating Australia). In Glasgow in 2014, South
Africa ended New Zealand’s run of success by beating the Kiwis in the
final.
The Cantabrians win the first Hong Kong sevens, 1976.
The rise of rugby sevens to such
a high level of international competition began in yet another unlikely setting:
Happy Valley in Hong Kong, where an annual tournament was started in 1976. It
came to be called “the Olympic Games of rugby”. Yet it blossomed in the face of
stiff initial opposition from the International Rugby Board and the Rugby
Football Union in England to commercial sponsorship in rugby. With the backing
of Rothmans and Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong sevens drew many national teams
from the region, but in the first instance Australia and New Zealand sent the
Wallaroos and the Cantabrians. The latter, a New Zealand invitational team,
beat the Wallaroos 24-8 in the first final.
It’s fair to say the Hong
Kong sevens were ahead of their time and an influential force in the
modernisation of rugby union, 11 years ahead of the first 15-a-side World Cup
and 19 years ahead of professional rugby. Famed Scottish commentator Bill McLaren said,
"While tournaments like the Hong Kong sevens continue to be played, rugby administrators
can be confident that the game will continue to thrive in over 100 countries
worldwide."
International sevens rugby
got off to what might have seemed an inauspicious start, at Murrayfield in
Edinburgh on April 7, 1973. At the end of its centenary celebrations that
season, the Scottish Rugby Union organised a tournament in which IRB member nations,
France and a President’s team including otherwise ostracised South Africans
took part. Scotland, the birthplace of sevens, thought such an event was
appropriate for its 100th birthday bash. But it became very clear that
Australia and New Zealand, in particular, had very little idea what sevens was
all about, and selected teams accordingly. Australia sent big forwards like
Barry Stumbles, Garrick Fay and David Duckworth, physically strong but unsuited
to the demands of the fast-moving sevens game. New Zealand at least took Grant Batty,
George Skudder, Duncan Hales, Ian Stevens and Lyn Colling, but also had big
forwards in Alan Sutherland, Alex Wyllie and Alistair Shown.
England emerged from one of
the two pools to beat Ireland, which had edged out New Zealand in Pool A, by
22-18 in the final. England had a well balanced team, with Keith Fielding,
David Duckham, the fabulous Peter Rossborough, Steve Smith,
Andy Ripley and Peter Preece (Fran Cotton, Jon Gray and Roger Uttley were also there). Ireland had sprint champion Vinny Becker,
Wallace McMaster, the crafty Mike Gibson, Donal Canniffe, Fergus Slattery,
lanky duo Kevin Mays (not a sprinter) and Terry Moore and Seamus Dennison. The
President’s team included Andy Irvine, Jim Renwick, Jan Ellis and Piet Greyling.
Rogge with Ghent in 1970.
The play was exciting enough,
but there was nothing in it to suggest that 36 years later, in Copenhagen in
October 2009, the International Olympic Committee would agree to recall rugby
to the Olympics. Perhaps the fact that the IOC’s then president, Count Jacques
Jean Marie Rogge, had played rugby for Belgium might have helped the cause. Sevens
rugby debuted as an Olympic sport at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing in China in
August 2014, when Australia won the girl’s gold medal.
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