•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With an eye on making their mark at the 2016 Olympics, the women’s teams at the Dubai Sevens are looking for every opportunity to stake their claim to a share of international rugby.

It will be the first time that women’s teams are represented alongside the men at an International Rugby Board-sanctioned sevens event. While an important milestone for the women’s game, many of the players say they are just thankful to be playing their first international match since the 2009 Rugby Sevens World Cup.

“It’s an exciting step,” said American captain Beth Black, whose team is among the favorites to win the inaugural Women’s Sevens Challenge Cup that also includes Australia, South Africa, Canada, England, Brazil, China and Spain. New Zealand, the runner-up in 2009 tournament, will not be here.

“Obviously, we don’t get as much playing time as the men do,” said Black, who is also a high school teacher. “To just to be another step closer to getting a piece of what they do is awesome.”

Sevens is the faster cousin of the traditional 15-a-side rugby game — consisting of seven players and two seven-minute halves — and the International Rugby Board has been working hard to raise the profile of the game since it won a spot at the Olympics two years ago.

The IRB also sees sevens as the ideal vehicle to expand the reach of the women’s game.

“What sevens has done, it has given a new level of opportunity to showcase the game on the world stage,” said Susan Carty, the women’s development manager for the IRB. “It has been huge advantage in terms of a development tool in a lot of countries where rugby isn’t traditional and numbers have been quite low.”

The announcement of the women’s tournament in Dubai comes as the IRB finalizes an ambitious plan to grow women’s rugby in the next five years “across all continents beyond the 200,000 registered players currently regularly competing.”

Sevens in Australia has seen a dramatic turnaround and most credit the Olympic announcement. It has gone from almost no sevens tournaments before the announcement to most big cities and even small towns hosting competitions.

“A lot more girls are coming into camp to try out for the Australia team,” Australia captain and center Rebecca Tavo said. “Everyone is trying to get a piece of sevens.”

The United States hosted the first Women’s Club Sevens National Championship this year, and next month it will hold the first Women’s College Sevens National Championship.

Women make up the fastest-growing segment of rugby players in the United States, with participation increasing by 235 percent between 1999 and last year. Sevens is attracting athletes in droves who grew up playing football or basketball and are won over by its speed and relative simplicity.

Despite all the talk of the growth of the game, the teams in Dubai said there was plenty of work to be done.

Most of the women’s teams still struggle for funding, and even the best teams only play a handful of international matches each year. Many players have to pay their own way to matches — though the IRB and Dubai-based airline Emirates airlines are covering the cost of the Dubai tournament — and most hold full-time jobs since they can’t make enough playing the sport.

Associated Press