Running (sevens) rugby takes centre stage amid best the world can offer

The Olympic Sevens?

They have, frankly, been an absolute revelation. Yes, I knew that this form of rugby could be entertaining. Yes, I knew that on a good day it could even be spectacular. But sporting theatre to this level? I had no idea. Despite the disappointment of both our men’s and women’s teams coming fourth, just when higher honours were beckoning, the tournament itself was wonderful. The standard of play was off the charts.

You might recall TFF’s favourite apocryphal response from Michelangelo when asked how he accomplished something so brilliant as his statue of David: “Very simple – I started with a block of marble, and chipped away everything that didn’t look like the boy.”

The point is, if you do the same with Test rugby and chip away all the dull bits, you get sevens! Gone are the endlessly collapsing scrums, the long kicking duels, the ceaseless penalty goals and constant forward charges taking the ball ahead five centimetres at a time. Collisions are minimised, evasions – which is the true joy of the game – are maximised.

The best rugby matches are celebrated for how much running with the ball there is. In sevens, there is pretty much nothing but running rugby. And yet there are still all kind of body types required, as strength and bulk are as valued as sheer speed. In the Olympic arena, it all comes together to take the breath away.

The passing! The speed of action! The breathtaking skills! The non-stoppedness of it all! And the fact that teams like Brazil, America, Canada and China which make little impact on Test rugby, are seriously rising forces in this game, meant that the whole thing felt genuinely global with fresh contenders for supremacy beyond the usual rugby powers.

Things didn’t end well for Maddison Levi and Australia’s sevens rugby teams in Paris.Credit: Getty Images

At Stade de France the crowd was at capacity, deliriously joyous throughout – and enjoying the women’s game for the standard of play every bit as much as the men’s game.

Watching the coverage afterwards, I was fascinated to see the level of celebration for the American bronze at the expense of our fine women – with US network NBC’s Today show reporter Hoda Kotb saying, while interviewing the whole team “You’ve provided the best moments of these games.”

Canadian coverage for the women’s silver medal was even more delirious. Yes, yes, yes, I know that rugby sevens will struggle to make headway against the rugby league juggernaut and their 50,000 viewers at Las Vegas early this year, but – seriously folks – now that North America realises what a game it is, and how good they are at it, the sky’s the limit for this game.

And our mob will come back.

US skateboarding great Nyjah Huston won a bronze medal.Credit: Getty Images

Skate-bored. You’d see better in a car park

Look, it may well be a generational thing, but I was less convinced by the skateboarding, as spectacular as the venue is in Place de le Concorde at the bottom of the Champs-Elysees. There might be other sports where most of the competitors fall down most of the time, but I haven’t seen it. One of the Twitterati put it well: “I’ve just watched half an hour of skateboarding at the #OlympicGames. Roughly 35 participants have attempted tricks. 32 of them have gone arse up. They could’ve held this competition in the Coles car park and seen more completed tricks. What am I watching?”

When they pull off the tricks it is spectacular, but the crashes are jarring – and all the more so because many of them are not wearing helmets. Beyond that, I am the only one who thinks putting 11-year-olds like China’s Zheng Haohao through the pressure of an Olympics is pushing it a bit? On the reckoning that “children should be children”, engaging in a diversity of activities to work out who they are and what they want to do, she can’t have been doing much more than skateboarding, surely, to be world-class at that age?

Guatemala’s Adriana Ruano completed a dream run to gold. Credit: Getty Images

Guatemala’s shooting star won me over

The best Olympics yarn so far? That would be the story of the woman who won Guatemala’s first gold medal on Wednesday. See, as a sixteen-year-old Adriana Ruano had strong ambitions in the sport of gymnastics and was shooting for the World Championships and Rio Olympics only to injure her spine so badly that her twirly-gig career was over.

Devastated, she decided to shoot for something else instead: clay pigeons! The inspiration came while working as a volunteer at Rio 2016, and finding herself posted to the trap shooting venue. She returned to Guatemala, took up the sport and five years later was good enough to make the Tokyo Olympics, only to come stone motherless last in the qualifying round, 26th out of 26 shooters.

Not this time, though. This time she shot the lights out, smashing 45 clays out of 50 in the final to break the Olympic record of 43.

I love stories like that.

Credit:

They said

Ariarne Titmus after winning the 400m freestyle in back-to-back Olympics: “I hope it goes to show, anyone can do what they want to do if they work hard and believe in themselves. And here I am, from little old Launie, a town of 90,000, and I’m out here living the dream, so I hope that inspired kids back home.”

Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi lost his wedding ring in the Seine during the opening ceremony, after having lost so much weight in recent months to compete: “I followed it with my gaze until I saw it bounce inside the boat. If I really had to lose it, I couldn’t imagine a better place. It will remain forever in the riverbed of the City of Love. May it be a good omen to return home with an even bigger gold!”

Headline in The New York Times on the opening ceremony: “Opening Ceremony Misses the Boat.” Harsh. I thought the ceremony was brilliant, if long.

Jessica Fox of Australia takes a selfie with a fan after winning the gold medal.Credit: AP

Jessica Fox on winning the kayak gold: “That was the most incredible moment of my life. I’ve been crying for the last 30 minutes. I was crying of stress and nerves sitting there.”

Steph Catley after the Matildas beat Zambia 6-5: “It was a . . . very eventful day.”

Pierre Rabadan, the former French rugby international, now a deputy mayor of Paris in charge of sport and the Olympic Games on spending over €1.5 billion to clean the Seine so the triathlon could take place: “We have faced a certain scepticism for several years now and this morning was the best response. We said we would hold the triathlon in the River Seine 10 years ago and we did it.”

Rafael Nadal after losing to Djokovic at Roland Garros: “If that’s the last match here, I’ll be in peace. I did my best and I can’t complain.”

Rafael Nadal of Team Spain acknowledges the crowd after losing to Novak Djokovic.Credit: Getty Images

Great Britain’s Kimberley Woods on taking bronze in the K1 slalom: “I’m really proud that I went out there and paddled who I wanted to be.”

USA fencer Lee Kiefer has her feet on the ground despite winning gold: “I don’t think my life is going to change. That’s just me, I’m chill. I’m a good fencer and I still have a lot of studying to do!”

Bruce McAvaney on who is on the Australian Mount Rushmore of Olympians: “Emma is in the conversation. I’ve got Betty, Dawn and Thorpey at the absolute top and in a week’s time, I think we’re going to talk about Arnie [Titmus] and Jess [Fox] in the same league.”

Eurosport commentator Bob Ballard, commenting, as the Australian women’s 4x100 metre relay team lingered a little on the pool deck: “Well the women are just finishing up. You know what women are like . . . hanging around, doing their makeup.”

Eurosport getting rid of Ballard after his gaffe: “During a segment of Eurosport’s coverage [Sunday], commentator Bob Ballard made an inappropriate comment. To that end, he has been removed from our commentary roster with immediate effect.”

Barbara Butch – who was in the centre in the falsely labelled Last Supper part of the Olympics opening ceremony – following the backlash: “I’m committed, and I’m proud. Proud of who I am, of what I am, and of what I embody, both for my loved ones and for millions of French people. My France is France!”

Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa after he signed a four-year, $US212.4 million ($326 million) contract extension: “Show me the money!”

Vivian Kong after winning the gold medal in the individual women’s epee, despite falling behind 7-1 in the final: “I didn’t want to lose so badly. I didn’t want to give up without showing the Hong Kong spirit. At 7-1, I told myself I do not want to lose with such an embarrassing margin. So I just tried to come back point by point.”

Vivian Kong (left) during fencing competition in Paris.Credit: AP

Team of the Week

Jess Fox. Became the first Australian to win six individual Olympic medals and the eighth Australian to win three individual gold medals across any sport, joining Ian Thorpe, Dawn Fraser, Shane Gould, Betty Cuthbert, Murray Rose, Ariarne Titmus and Kaylee McKeown.

Ariarne Titmus. They don’t call her “The Terminator” for nuttin’. Successfully defended her 400m gold.

Mollie O’Callaghan. With her first individual Olympic gold medal, she stopped being referred to as the swimmer with the flaming red hair.

Kaylee McKeown. Became the second woman in Olympic history to win consecutive 100m backstroke gold medals.

Maddison Levi. The Australian sevens player was stunning at the Olympics, alas, in a losing team.

Matildas. They were superb last year, and completely off their game this year. A very sad exit from the Olympics.

France. Our hosts are on fire. Their best in the modern era at a single Games is eight gold and 43 medals. It looks like they will smash this on both fronts. Best gold for mine was in rugby sevens, beating Fiji in front of a delirious crowd, led by the extraordinary Antoine Dupont.

Vivian Kong. Won fencing gold for Hong Kong, and is now described as – I guess it had to happen – “Queen Kong” as kids in her homeland are now rushing sign up for fencing.

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