Lapasset Turns Focus to Rio 2016 Rugby -- On the Scene

(ATR) Bernard Lapasset refuses to speculate on his future as chairman of World Rugby,insisting his focus is on presenting a top rugby event at the Rio Olympics.

Lapasset was speaking at the closing press conference of the 2015 Rugby World Cup at Twickenham, the day after the tournament was won by New Zealand for the third time after they beat Australia 34-17 in the final.

Although his second term as federation chairman comes to an end next year, the Frenchman declined to comment on whether he would stand for a third term amid suggestions that he wants to focus all his efforts on leading Paris’ bid for the 2024 Olympics.

But Lapasset was adamant that he remained fully focused on leading rugby into a new era.

"There are still high priorities here," he said. "We have Rugby Sevens in the Olympics, that is fantastic for us. To be in the 28 sports events in the world that is very important for us and we need to achieve the right presentation of the Sevens in Rio.

"It will be the signal for the audience of Sevens around the world, we have a lot of unions playing Sevens around the world this is a good promotion for this discipline, in Rio."

He added: "Next week we will open up the next event in 2019. It will be the same as here in London, it will be a fantastic tournament in Japan for the development of the game. Around the world, not just in Japan, not just in Asia, but good for the development of rugby around the world."

The debut of rugby Sevens in the Olympics will take place in the Deodoro Olympic Park and Lapasset confirmed "good progress" of the construction of the 10,000-seat stadium.

"I met with the chairman of the Brazilian Rugby Union as he was here [in London] and we talked about the contact we’ve had with the Rio 2016 organizers and we are hopeful this [venue completion] will be achieved very soon," he said.

"We have good contact with them, the progress is good, we have good support from the government and the local authority and I talked personally with the mayor of Rio and I am very positive about the certainty of the work in Deodoro."

World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper hailed England 2015 as the "finest" tournament ever following a record-breaking six weeks.

Figures released by rugby’s governing body show that the final was watched by an estimated global television audience of 120 million. The total tournament attendance was a record 2,474,584, with a further million people visiting the fan zones.

England 2015 generated over $387 million in ticket revenues, delivering an $124 million surplus to World Rugby and a $23 million surplus to the Rugby Football Union.

Gosper was in high spirits in London on Sunday."We will review the tournament over the next few weeks," he said. A lot of things went right, we’ll dig for the things that might not have gone as right as we’d like them to. We will learn from that.

"It’s why every World Cup should be better because you take the learnings from the last and move it on so we’re not being disrespectful to other tournaments when we say this is not just the biggest but it is the finest of the greatest tournament, the Rugby World Cup, that we’ve ever had."

Reported in London by Christian Radnedge

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