Rugby Sevens, Men

The format had been changed slightly to allow the tournament to take place over three days instead of two as in Rio. Nine of the twelve teams who took part in 2016 also qualified for Tokyo. The exceptions were Canada, Ireland and Korea. COVID regulations resulted in the withdrawal of three teams from the final global qualifiers. In Rio Fiji were very much the gold medal favourites but by 2021 they had been superseded by New Zealand, who won both the 2018 World Sevens Cup and the latest edition of the season long World Sevens Series. South Africa and Australia were the other automatic qualifiers from the World Series and were expected to be medal contenders too.

The pool stage generally proceeded as excepted but for the defeat of Australia at the hands of Argentina. This meant the Aussies would have to play Fiji in the quarter finals instead of less frightening opponents. Argentina staged another giant killing in those quarter-finals when they survived a late comeback by South Africa whilst the USA squandered a twenty-one-point lead to be beaten 26-21 by Great Britain.

On the other hand, the progress of both New Zealand and Fiji was smooth in the knockout stages of the competition and both duly took their places in the final. Meli Derenalagi capitalized on New Zealand losing possession after 55 seconds of the final to score a try that put Fiji ahead. A minute later came the decisive moment of the game. A New Zealander fumbled the ball inside his own try line and Sireli Maqala pounced on his mistake to put Fiji 12-0 ahead. From then on the pattern was set as both teams traded scores, but New Zealand could never close the gap and were eventually beaten 27-12 and Fiji, despite being deeply affected by COVID 19 as both a team and a country, successfully retained the Olympic title.

After receiving their Olympic medals, the Fijian team sang the traditional Fijian song “E Da Sa Qaqa” to a worldwide audience from the medal podium. In the bronze medal game Argentina won South America’s first Olympic rugby medal by beating Great Britain. Argentina’s Marcos Moneta was the top try scorer in the tournament while Andrew Knewstubb of New Zealand was the leading points scorer.