Earlier than final weekend’s Madrid Sevens, Black Fern Portia Woodman-Wickliffe got here to speak to the commentary workforce about her journey via life and rugby. For thirty fascinating minutes, with humour and emotion, Woodman-Wickliffe described her begin as as a semi-pro netballer along with her coronary heart set on changing into a Silver Fern. Portia was formidable, and netball was the one possibility out there on the time for feminine athletes in New Zealand who needed play a completely skilled sport.
However netball wasn’t to be her yellow brick highway. Her distinctive expertise was noticed by rugby scouts earlier than the Rio Olympics, they whisked her off the courtroom and onto the pitch, and the remaining is historical past: Woodman-Wickliffe has gained each main rugby trophy on supply in fifteen-a-side and Sevens. She holds the all-time strive scoring report on the HSBC SVNS World Collection and broke via the 250 strive 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 closing. The Black Ferns have been crushed: a rugby silver to the remainder of the world is perhaps 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 can be exorcised with an imperious show within the Tokyo closing towards 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. That they had scaled their Everest.
Besides.
This second of triumph and elation was as a substitute characterised, mentioned 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 may (all get together necessities have been smuggled into the workforce lodge) the primary ever NZ workforce to win an Olympic Rugby Sevens gold medal then returned dwelling and went straight into quarantine. Instantly after that, somewhat than take pleasure in a public celebration, the workforce quietly joined the nationwide lockdown.
With 50 days to go to the Paris Olympics, a European Olympics hosted by an excellent 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 sport to be showcased by the Olympic Video games. However circumstances have repeatedly labored towards 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 dwell footage of a USA medal win to hundreds of thousands Stateside. However regardless of the expertise on show and the sporting drama that unfolded on the sphere, the vacancy contained in the stadium undermined the keenness and drive the commentators tried so onerous to carry. As Portia urged – 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 excellent rugby nation, we’re all hoping that the second is lastly right here – the second that Portia, and Rugby Sevens as a complete, has its likelihood to shine, to buzz, to catch fireplace and hit the large time. Paris would possibly mark the shift that has been promised since 2016, and the horizon, thus far, is trying 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, bought 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 ambiance which units it aside so distinctly from different sports activities. Twenty-four groups from all all over the world will compete for medals in entrance of extra followers which have ever attended a Sevens occasion. The noise, the atmos, the optics shall be field workplace.
The French, we all know, love their rugby, however, greater than that, the host nation are good – superb. The France girls’s workforce now commonly competes for medals on the HSBC SVNS Collection and the boys’s simply gained the inaugural Madrid Grand Ultimate 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. Probably the most well-known rugby participant on this planet, fairly in all probability the very best – and undoubtedly essentially 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 observe him play Sevens. He wasn’t alone. Dupont, along with his fifteen-a-side achievements nonetheless reverberating across the streets of Toulouse, has solely performed three occasions on the Collection – but he has gained a bronze and two golds already. He was chosen for the Dream Group 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 looks 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 celebrities 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 via the arteries of the broader worldwide rugby community. Gamers, directors, sponsors, broadcasters and followers. We will all really feel it. 2024 has each likelihood of being the yr for Rugby Sevens. Allez!