Olympics, 2024: Inside the unique approach which has Australia primed for rugby sevens gold

They’re the toughest women of the Olympic Games, but the rituals of Australia’s Rugby Sevens team don’t fit the classic rugby stereotype. Take a look inside their team bonding.

All roads lead to the Arc de Triomphe for Australia’s women’s rugby sevens squad, but along the way there is Olympic cake baking, hair braiding and noise cancelling headphones at training.

Welcome inside the bizarre world of the women’s Rugby Sevens team where team bonding and culture has driven the team back to the top of the world game as they enter the Olympics as gold medal favourites.

Head coach Tim Walsh is renowned for his inventive coaching ways with Charlotte Caslick revealing some of this year’s Olympic themed motivational tools that have Australia primed for the start of their competition at the Stade de France on Sunday.

“We decorated some cakes the other day in the shape of Olympic rings before we came from Montpellier because we’ve been talking about how we’ve made our cake and now we’re icing it,” Caslick said.

“He has had us training with noise cancelling headphones on with headgear over the top so we couldn’t hear each other so we had to communicate with hand signals and read each others’ lips because obviously the Stade de France is going to be a full house over the course of our tournament.

Australia's women's rugby team and their unique team bonding moments ahead of the Paris Olympics. Team members with the Olympic ring cakes they designed.

“He thinks of everything and he gets us prepared for every possible scenario so anything that comes our way we are pretty good at adapting to.

“I think we’re probably the first rugby players in the world to have done a lot of things.

“Even I guess sitting around in a circle braiding each other’s hair before we play doesn’t fit the classic stereotypes with rugby.

“We like to think we’re breaking down a few barriers in our sport, whether it is to do with hair or baking cakes.”

Another motivational tool was using the roads leading into the Arc de Triomphe as milestones to tick off on the road to Paris. Each street was renamed to either a preseason camp, Sevens tournament, staging camp and finally the “Paris Pathway.”

“We’re going to the Arc de Triomphe this afternoon as a team activity because it has been part of our campaign this season, the streets leading in towards it and we’re on our final street so we’re going to literally walk up it together,” she said.

Australia's women's rugby team ’Path to Paris’ map with all roads leading to the Champs Elysee.

‘No regrets’ has been a catchcry of their campaign and Caslick is confident they will avenge the disappointment of Tokyo where they were a shock elimination in the quarter-finals.

“We obviously would love to win another gold medal,” she said.

“We were really disappointed with our results in Tokyo losing that quarter final. But I think we learnt from that. Sevens is a brutal sport and you don’t have much time to play yourself back into games if you don’t start well.

“The girls have overcome a bit of adversity and they’re a really resilient group even though they are quite young so I’m really excited just to see how they perform and we encourage them to have fun and be courageous.

“I think when we get out there we play without any fear. We want to have fun. We play our best footy together when we are smiling and enjoying ourselves on and off the field.

“We’ve had the best preparation we could have had. We’ve done everything possible to get the outcome we want. Now we’ve just got to go out and do it and have fun while doing it.”

Originally published as Olympics, 2024: Inside the unique approach which has Australia primed for rugby sevens gold