Earlier than final weekend’s Madrid Sevens, Black Fern Portia Woodman-Wickliffe got here to speak to the commentary crew about her journey by life and rugby. For thirty fascinating minutes, with humour and emotion, Woodman-Wickliffe described her begin as as a semi-pro netballer together with her coronary heart set on turning into a Silver Fern. Portia was formidable, and netball was the one choice obtainable on the time for feminine athletes in New Zealand who wished play a totally skilled sport.
However netball wasn’t to be her yellow brick street. Her distinctive expertise was noticed by rugby scouts earlier than the Rio Olympics, they whisked her off the court docket and onto the pitch, and the remaining is historical past: Woodman-Wickliffe has received each main rugby trophy on provide in fifteen-a-side and Sevens. She holds the all-time attempt scoring file on the HSBC SVNS World Sequence and broke by the 250 attempt barrier in Singapore final month.
One specific anecdote of Portia’s stood out. Rio 2016, her Olympic debut, noticed the Black Ferns lose to Australia within the remaining. The Black Ferns have been crushed: a rugby silver to the remainder of the world is likely to be stellar, however to a New Zealander, born and bred into the code, it solely means defeat. Quick ahead 4, then a Covid-enforced 5 years, to 2021, and the demons of Rio could be exorcised with an imperious show within the Tokyo remaining in opposition to France. This was it – the second that they’d fought for, labored for, suffered for, sacrificed for and dreamt of. They have been Olympic champions, gold medallists. They’d scaled their Everest.
Besides.
This second of triumph and elation was as an alternative characterised, stated Portia, by a sense of hollowness. As a result of there they have been, their medals spherical their neck within the magnificent 50,000 seat Tokyo Stadium – and it was empty. Silent. Not a single spectator had been allowed to attend. After celebrating as a squad as finest they might (all celebration necessities have been smuggled into the crew lodge) the primary ever NZ crew to win an Olympic Rugby Sevens gold medal then returned house and went straight into quarantine. Instantly after that, moderately than take pleasure in a public celebration, the crew quietly joined the nationwide lockdown.
With 50 days to go to the Paris Olympics, a European Olympics hosted by an awesome rugby nation, we’re all hoping that the second is lastly right here
This sense of deflation wasn’t solely felt by Portia – air had escaped from all our Rugby Sevens balloons. Since Sevens turned an Olympic sport – that so-called ‘game-changing’ second when it was awarded Olympic standing by the IOC – we’ve yearned for the fireworks and razzamatazz, for the fizz and talent of this glorious recreation to be showcased by the Olympic Video games. However circumstances have repeatedly labored in opposition to it. Throughout Covid and its extended aftermath, even broadcasters struggled. I used to be commentating on Tokyo for US community NBC, who have been hoping to get America hooked on the quick tempo and thrill of the game, and with some luck even beam reside footage of a USA medal win to hundreds of thousands Stateside. However irrespective of the expertise on show and the sporting drama that unfolded on the sphere, the vacancy contained in the stadium undermined the passion and drive the commentators tried so laborious to deliver. As Portia recommended – an empty stadium creates an emotional void. The momentum of Rugby Sevens felt as if it had stalled.
However with 50 days to go to the Paris Olympics, a European Olympics hosted by an awesome rugby nation, we’re all hoping that the second is lastly right here – the second that Portia, and Rugby Sevens as an entire, has its probability to shine, to buzz, to catch hearth and hit the massive time. Paris may mark the shift that has been promised since 2016, and the horizon, to this point, is wanting good.
Rugby Sevens is the second-fastest promoting ticket occasion on the Video games, with all six days of motion, males’s and ladies’s, offered out on the mighty Stade de France. Even with the stadium reconfigured for athletics, there’ll nonetheless be 60,000 followers within the stands enlivened by that inimitable, irrepressible Sevens environment which units it aside so distinctly from different sports activities. Twenty-four groups from all around the globe will compete for medals in entrance of extra followers which have ever attended a Sevens occasion. The noise, the atmos, the optics can be field workplace.
The French, we all know, love their rugby, however, greater than that, the host nation are good – excellent. The France ladies’s crew now recurrently competes for medals on the HSBC SVNS Sequence and the boys’s simply received the inaugural Madrid Grand Remaining after a title-run in LA.
As Jonah Lomu did for fifteen-a-side in 1995, Antoine Dupont can do for Sevens in 2024.
And there’s in fact Antoine Dupont. Essentially the most well-known rugby participant on the planet, fairly most likely the most effective – and positively probably the most thrilling. His star energy is immense: in Madrid I met a French fan who had pushed all the best way from Carcassonne simply to look at him play Sevens. He wasn’t alone. Dupont, together with his fifteen-a-side achievements nonetheless reverberating across the streets of Toulouse, has solely performed three occasions on the Sequence – but he has received a bronze and two golds already. He was chosen for the Dream Workforce in any respect three occasions, snapped up the Rookie of the Season award, and the distinction his presence makes to his France Sevens teammates is palpable. After the heartbreak at being knocked out of a house fifteen-a-side World Cup in Paris final yr, the scrum half normal now has an opportunity to encourage a gold medal at a house Olympics, in entrance of a sold-out crowd. As Jonah Lomu did for fifteen-a-side in 1995, Antoine Dupont can do for Sevens in 2024.
Fifty days out, it appears like we’re constructing to the second all of us need for Rugby Sevens. Simply as occasions conspired to dampen the spark of Tokyo, the celebs are actually aligning to set it alight within the Metropolis of Lights. The countdown has begun and the adrenalin is pumping – not simply within the gamers’ coaching camps however by the arteries of the broader worldwide rugby community. Gamers, directors, sponsors, broadcasters and followers. We are able to all really feel it. 2024 has each probability of being the yr for Rugby Sevens. Allez!
