IRB president Bernard Lapasset says the Olympics would be the “pinnacle” for rugby sevens if the sport was included in the Games. (Getty Images)The International Rugby Board announced Tuesday that it is ready to sacrifice its own rugby sevens World Cup, and $20 million revenue, for a chance to be a part of the 2016 Olympics.
“The Olympic Games are the peak of sporting achievement, and the Olympic Games would be the pinnacle for Rugby sevens. The Olympic tournament would become the jewel in the Rugby 7s crown,” Bernard Lapasset, president of the IRB, told a London media briefing staged in the middle of his team’s rehearsals ahead of its presentation to the IOC Executive Board in Lausanne next month.
“The world’s top rugby players have all told us that they want to be there and would be honored to be called Olympians,” the Frenchman said.
The IRB points to the success of its tournaments at the Commonwealth Games since 1998, and its inclusion at the Asian Games, All-Africa Games and Pan American Games.
The organization also emphasized the Rugby sevens tournament’s ability to be staged over just two or three days in an existing stadium, while appealing to a large, and young, audience. This year’s rugby sevens World Cup in Dubai attracted a global television audience of 760 million. (Getty Images)
This year’s Rugby sevens World Cup, which was played in early March,was staged in Dubai and claimed a global television audience of 760 million.
Significantly, rugby officials at the briefing, including IRB chief executive Mike Miller, were careful to refer to the sport’s “re-introduction” to the Olympics, emphasizing that the sport, in its traditional, 15-a-side format, had been part of the GamesunderBaron Pierre de Coubertin.
Lapasset underlined that Rugby sevens would bring several positives to the Olympics. “We would help to extend the universiality of sport,” Lapasset said. “Nations such as Fiji, New Zealand, Kenya and Argentina would be given a new chance to win an Olympic medal.” Dubai even saw a women’s team from Iran qualify for the finals tournament.
And Miller pointed to the sport’s worldwide, passionate following, as offering benefits to the Olympics. “It’s not just about the teams,” he said, “it is also about the fans. We have fans who are passionate and will travel and bring a special rugby atmosphere.”
With qualifying tournaments needed for the Olympics, as well as the existing annual international commitments and the 15-a-side World Cup’s four-year qualifying cycle, it seems unlikely that the IRB would be able easily to schedule additional qualifying rounds for a sevens World Cup.
The Rugby sevens World Series, with weekend tournaments staged around the globe at venues including Hong Kong, San Diego and London, would continue.
Officials were reluctant to put a price on the lost revenue from abandoning the Rugby sevens World Cup, but relinquished TV and sponsorship revenue is estimated to amount to $20 million over each four-year cycle. Whatever the amount, “it would be a small price to pay,” Miller said.
Miller and Lapasset said that informal approaches to the four bid cities for 2016 had received positive feedback, and that IOC delegates attending the Dubai World Cup had been “very impressed”. Rugby sevens is one of seven sports bidding for inclusion in the 2016 Summer Olympics. (Getty Images)
They stressed that no demand or requirement had been made by the sport for a particular venue – the tournament’s self-contained nature means that it can be staged in any existing, available athletics or soccer stadium, and that at previous multi-sports Games, Rugby sevens had been staged in the otherwise unused main arena in a couple of days before the track and field program got underway.
Rugby is one of seven sports hoping for approval from the IOC in Copenhagen in October. Other sports seeking introduction, or re-introduction, from 2016 are baseball, golf, karate, roller sports, softball and squash.
After sports presentations to the Executive Board in Lausanne on June 15, a decision is likely to be reached at the board’s meeting in Berlin in August, with its recommendations going forward to Copenhagen.
Written by Steven Downes
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