France’s female rugby sevens team guarantees a place at Rio 2016
The team qualified by winning the European Grand Prix Series in France at the weekend (21-21 June)
France’s female rugby sevens players, newly qualified for the Olympic Games in Rio 2016 (World Rugby)
The French women's team is the latest team to qualify for the rugby sevens tournament at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. As confirmed by World Rugby, the team won the Olympic spot on claiming the European title in the second and final leg of the 2015 Rugby Europe Sevens Women’s Grand Prix Series (WGPS), at home, in the city of Malemort, France, in front of 3000 fans at the weekend.
Despite an unexpected loss to the Netherlands in the pool stages of the Final Series of the Sevens WGPS, France took down first-leg winners Russia for 19-0 in the semi-final, and went on to defeat Spain by a convincing score of 20-0 in the final match, winning not only the second-leg of the competition, but also the overall European WGPS title and a spot at the Games.
France now joins Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, (the four best-placed teams from the 2014-2015 World Series), Colombia (the winner of the South American qualifier) and the USA (the champion from North America and the Caribbean) alongside Olympic host country, Brazil, in the women’s rugby sevens line-up for Rio 2016.
Behind France, Russia took the silver medal and Spain the bronze in the overall series standings.
The first leg of the 2015 Rugby Europe Sevens Women’s Grand Prix Series took place in Kazan, Russia on the 13 and 14 June, with the host team, Russia, finishing in first place. However, after France’s performance in the second-leg knocked them out of the running for the weekend’s Olympic qualifying spot, the team now hopes to qualify via World Rugby’s Global Repechage Tournament in 2016.
Before that, Europe’s eligible women’s rugby sevens teams will battle it out at the European Olympic Repechage Tournament in Lisbon (Portugal) from 18-19 July.
Rio2016.com is not an absolute authority on qualification for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is an ongoing process. Final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games). The qualification systems are defined by each sport’s respective International Federation and the International Olympic Committee or International Paralympic Committee, and are subject to change. When an athlete or team wins a quota place for their nation, the final decision on whether this ‘slot’ is used and which athletes are sent is taken by the respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee (NOC or NPC). Even when athletes win a ‘nominal’ place for themselves, NOCs/NPCs may have to decide who to send if the number of qualified athletes from one country exceeds the quota.
