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Olympic Qualifying

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    Posted 1 year ago

  2. OnRugby
    Member

    From the Nigel Melville blog,

    During our meetings in Dubai, one agenda item included a discussion on Olympic qualification. The International Rugby Board are currently wrestling with a tough question – how will they qualify 12 teams (men and women) to participate in the Rio Olympics in 2016?

    At this point, the Rugby Sevens in Rio will be 12 team tournaments – not the usual 16 team format as currently played on the IRB Sevens World Series or the 24 team Hong Kong Sevens. The good news, I suppose, is that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be participating under the banner of Great Britain – the bad news for Oceania (one of the five Olympic Regions) is that they currently have four of the top sevens teams in the world including New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand – this appears to be causing a certain amount of discomfort in some quarters. Add to the mix that the host nation (Brazil) may be automatically eligible as the host Nation and you can probably get the feeling of what’s at stake.

    Who should compete in Rugby’s Olympics? Do we have to send the best 12 sides in the world? Or do we need equitable representation based on the five Olympic regions. Sprinters qualify regionally, so why not rugby teams? I think the general feeling is that we somehow qualify the 12 (or 11 best teams) regardless of the geography and I suspect the IRB are looking at maybe qualifying the top four teams through a global competition such as the IRB Sevens World Series and the rest qualify regionally.

    What will mean for the USA? It means that we would probably be competing for automatic top four qualification with a second opportunity of qualifying through the Americas.This would leave eight teams qualifying regionally, possibly only two from the Americas the current rankings being;

    1. Argentina
    2. USA
    3. Canada (and don’t forget Brazil…)

    Of course, no one would rule out Argentina qualifying as a top four team, and we hope to be challenging for one of those spots in 2013/14 or whenever the event will be held – that would make life easier for us all.

    Women's qualification may take a similar route, currently the USA Women would be seen as a top 4 qualifier, following their world cup performances, however, heavy investment in women's rugby by China and Russia may change the landscape. We will certainly be looking for USOC support of the women's Eagles Sevens program.

    Currently all we can do is monitor progress and take an active role in the qualification debate. The first stage of this should be a request to make the competition a 16 team event, as I believe 12 team event is not the best competition model.

    "Currently all we can do is monitor progress and take an active role in the qualification debate...What is certain is that Olympic qualification will be intensely competitive. That is the central reason that I am working so closely with the USOC to implement our Olympic Sevens program now...we have to give ourselves every chance of qualifying before we start talking about medals…"

    What is certain is that Olympic qualification will be intensely competitive. That is the central reason that I am working so closely with the USOC to implement our Olympic Sevens program now and not wait for the next Olympic cycle in 2012 – we have to give ourselves every chance of qualifying before we start talking about medals…

    Posted 1 year ago #

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