High octane Sevens brings rugby back to the Games

World Rugby and the sport’s major sponsors have been keeping an eye on the United States for years.

Rugby sevens, making its Olympic debut here in Rio, is a fast game – two seven-minute halves of barely controlled speed and mayhem – and it will be a fast Olympics for the women’s squad. “It would be a dream come true”. “The challenges are big but change will come. We’ve got to perform consistently and be on the top of our game”, said Scarratt, the top points-scorer in that memorable World Cup triumph.

Waisale Serevi, one of the greatest sevens exponents of all time, is a proud Fijian who knows what the OIympic team is facing. I got a photo with him but he’s probably the biggest name I’ve seen here. “There is huge growth on the back of their success in rugby”.

Brazil, Colombia, Kenya and Japan were the teams to miss out on the knockout rounds and they will play off later on Sunday for a “core team” place on next year’s world series.

“There was a boom for women’s rugby in Brazil and I was fortunate to be involved at a high performance level, but I am not sure what will happen the day after the Games”, she said.

“My sister’s playing in the women’s team so I’ll be pretty keen to watch that”, he added.

Ryan will allow his players to use their phones to film and share their part in Friday’s opening ceremony – “that’s the memories, and I’m not going to stop them doing that” – before the mobiles are surrendered, “and then we’re on lockdown”.

The 31-year-old is one of the few top players from the 15-man game to have managed the transition to the lung-busting shorter format.

Beaumont wasn’t fazed by the lack of star power in the lineups.

Women’s Rugby makes its return to the Summer Olympics this week. France will be favored after finishing fifth during the 2015-2016 World Rugby Sevens Series season, while Spain was ninth.

“Every single person in the country has an expectation that, as the best side in the world, we’ll win and we’ll deliver”, Ryan told CNN’s World Rugby show.

As the vice president of the game’s organizing body, he is the man who has already done so much for Argentinean rugby in driving it into the Rugby Championship and Super Rugby.

“We want to expand sensibly, we want it to be sustainable”, Beaumont said.

And the former track sprinter said just being an Olympian fulfilled a lifelong ambition. “They want the gold medal back at home”.

Ranked third in the world, Canada will be among the gold medal contenders when the competition begins on Saturday.

“He definitely gets a lot of attention”, Mikkelson said.

Paes delivered on his promise, and Beaumont said with a smile they will be keeping the mayor’s phone number to themselves: “It’s not available, by the way”.

“I sent a message out to Chloe saying this is for the gold medal so keep your head down and slot this, and she did”.

In a country more used to celebrating the footballing feats of Pele, Zico, Ronaldo and Neymar, there are hopes that rugby sevens’ Olympic exposure will attract thousands more Brazilians to the oval ball game.