5 classes from the Olympic Video games rugby sevens

The rugby sevens on the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games is now over but it surely drew in 1000’s of spectators on the Stade de France and thousands and thousands of followers watching from dwelling.

The game has solely been featured within the Olympics since 2016 and every Video games the curiosity has grown within the sport.

In Paris it was France’s males and New Zealand’s girls who picked up the gold medals. Within the males’s occasion Fiji received silver and South Africa took dwelling the bronze. Within the girls’s occasion Canada received silver and the USA took the bronze.

However what we’re the speaking factors from the match? Listed below are the highest 5…

5 classes from the Olympic Video games rugby sevens

Rugby has its Olympic second

Eire’s Emily Lane catches the ball above Eire’s Erin King throughout the girls’s putting 7-8 rugby sevens match between Britain and Eire throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games. (Photograph by CARL DE SOUZA / AFP)

The Stade de France is famed for its ambiance, particularly with regards to rugby. The sevens match has been embraced by earlier Video games however none like Paris 2024.

1000’s have been in attendance and it was not just for the boys’s occasion however the girls’s match too. The Olympics broke the file for the best attendance of a girls’s rugby occasion with round 66,000 attending every day. The earlier file had seen 58,498 attend England v France at Twickenham.

Among the many file breaking crowd have been some star company. Celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Jason Kelce introduced much more consideration to the game.

Match attendances and ambiance weren’t the one facets to cement sevens’ elevated standing on the Video games, particular person stars have been too. The USA’s Ilona Maher has grow to be essentially the most adopted present rugby participant on the earth with 2.3 million Instagram followers and the quantity solely retains growing.

Rugby sevens has made a splash and organisers will probably be hoping it not solely continues at different Olympics however spills into the world collection too.

Antoine Dupont: Is he the GOAT of males’s rugby?

Antoine Dupont celebrates a strive as France win the primary crew gold medal of the Paris Video games (Getty Pictures)

France’s Antoine Dupont has been the poster boy of the boys’s competitors at this Olympics. Not solely as a result of he’s the star of the host nation however as a result of he went on to be the star of the boys’s match. His efficiency approaching within the gold medal remaining was impeccable: two tries and an help.

He has been within the biggest of all time dialog for his abilities within the 15s sport, which he displayed as soon as once more as he spearheaded membership Toulouse to Champions Cup and High 14 trophy success this season. However transferring that midas contact to the sevens sport – a code he began to play after final yr’s Rugby World Cup – has intensified the dialogue additional.

Associated: Is Antoine Dupont the best rugby participant of all time?

After all the likes of Jonah Lomu and Bryan Habana are amongst names additionally thrown round – and for good cause – however Antoine Dupont has most positively cemented himself in GOAT discussions for eternity.

He has now received the Six Nations, Champions Cup, High 14 and the Olympic gold medal. If he goes on to win the Rugby World Cup with France he would have accomplished the game.

Australia fail to medal

Teagan Levi and Maddison Levi of Group Australia are comforted by members of the gang following defeat on the Olympic Video games Paris 2024. (Photograph by Cameron Spencer/Getty Pictures)

Australia have been among the many favourites to take the gold medal and their pool stage and quarter-final performances completely supported the thought.

Maddison Levi was firing on all cylinders – happening to interrupt the file for the quantity of tries scored at a single Olympics with 14 – and the remainder of the crew have been cohesive and scientific.

Nonetheless, Canada blew them away within the semi-final to take them out of gold and silver competition. Many would scratch it as much as be an awesome efficiency from Canada and certainly Australia would take the bronze? No. The USA edged them out 14-12 and so the Aussies completed fourth.

It’ll go down as one of many largest upsets in sevens historical past – in addition to that Canada loss – and the Australia camp didn’t conceal their disappointment.

Australia girls’s coach Tim Walsh mentioned: “They’re devastated. They’ve put rather a lot into it. Everyone seems to be [devastated]. The workers are. However we obtained to carry our heads excessive. We got here into this match to stroll away with out remorse when it comes to our preparation. Each single one in all them has finished that. So, they are often proud.

“They’re going to be disillusioned clearly however I’m happy with them.”

USA create a rugby legacy

Group USA rugby sevens girls’s crew at Paris 2024 Olympic Video games (Getty Pictures)

The USA received a medal in rugby sevens for the primary time as a nation with the ladies’s bronze medal.

Their efforts have seen Michelle Kang – proprietor of London Metropolis Lionesses, Lyon girls and Washington Spirit – make investments $4 million over the subsequent 4 years. In her speech to the gamers the businesswoman mentioned it was with the intention of making an attempt to get them the gold medal on the subsequent Olympics – Los Angeles 2028.

Right now, Michele Kang introduced a $4 million reward to the USA Girls’s Rugby program. Following their historic success on the Paris Olympics, this reward will go towards the expansion of girls’s rugby, supporting athletes and coaches within the Nationwide program.https://t.co/xH0cvhQBi2

— USA Rugby (@USARugby) July 30, 2024

The crew has began a legacy and it’s clear they’re solely going to develop it from right here.

What’s subsequent for GB?

Nice Britain’s Ellie Kildunne dejected after sport at Paris 2024 Olympic Video games.
(Credit score ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan)

The boys’s competitors didn’t characteristic Group GB as they didn’t qualify however the girls’s occasion did.

There weren’t any exterior expectations of a medal and so they misplaced their quarter-final to eventual bronze medal winners the USA. However a pricey mistake within the final play towards China meant they have been within the seventh and eighth place play-off as a substitute of fifth and sixth.

GB received their remaining match, ending in seventh, however the end result and the boys’s failure to qualify might imply their funding will not be boosted for the subsequent cycle. Funding is required to ensure that the athletes to have the most effective assets and time to hone their craft, the crew’s funding had already been diminished to a part-time foundation heading into Paris.

Obtain the digital version of Rugby World straight to your pill or subscribe to the print version to get the journal delivered to your door.

Comply with Rugby World on Fb, Instagram and Twitter/X.