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Mention the Olympic Games to any sevens rugby player or coach, and do not expect them to start talking about the 2012 Summer Games in London.

All their thoughts, planning and preparation are instead geared toward the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, where sevens rugby will join one of the biggest sporting events in the world. It was voted into the program in October 2009.

Sevens rugby, which is a shorter, less-complicated version of the traditional 15-player game, has become a driving force in spreading rugby’s popularity around the globe.

It has been on the Commonwealth Games program since 1998, will be part of the Pan-American Games this year and even has its own World Cup every four years.

But the real promotion of the sport in recent years has come from the annual World Sevens Series, which has been going for more than a decade and has tournaments in Dubai, South Africa, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, England and Scotland.

Traditional rugby powerhouses — like New Zealand and Australia — contest each tournament, and less established rugby nations — like the United States and Argentina — are also core members that attend every event in the series, which runs from early December to late May.

The International Rugby Board hopes having Olympic status will be a catalyst for even further growth and development in the game.

“We have 118 member unions in the IRB now,and there are 205 nations that take part in the Olympics, so there are another 100 countries where we can spread the rugby gospel,” said Mike Miller, the rugby board’s chief executive.

Having Olympic status allows rugby to tap into previously unavailable resources and finances as each national rugby body becomes affiliated with its country’s Olympic Committee.

In the United States, USA Rugby is now an official member of the US Olympic Committee, and although the sevens squad will not have full access to resources until after the 2012 Games, it is benefiting from the use of high-performance training facilities and support from a sports psychologist, a nutritionist and a sports physiologist.

The US players juggle careers and studies with their rugby commitments, yet they face teams like England, New Zealand and South Africa whose sevens players are full-time professionals contracted to their national unions.

In Argentina, the sevens players are all based in their country and do not play rugby full time. This year the Olympic committee is providing some financial assistance for them and contributing toward the costs of attending tournaments.

Argentina sevens coach Nicolas Fernandez-Lobbe said the growing appeal and standard of sevens rugby meant more countries would offer their sevens players contracts, particularly now that Olympic medals are up for grabs.

“All the countries have to decide if they want to have two separate teams or just a team of young players to develop for XVs,” Fernandez-Lobbe said.

“In the long term, I think we are going to have to have separate teams, it’s the only way.” 


The New York Times