Great Britain Olympic programme announced

For many followers of the game, one of the slightly odd announcement made at the end of last weekend’s Amsterdam Sevens was “England Women Sevens have qualified Great Britain for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio”.

The problem has been that England, Wales and Scotland cannot take part in the Olympics as they are not individual members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - instead they have to join together and compete as “Great Britain”.

This is a difficulty many Olympic team sports face where the three countries compete separately. When rugby was last in the Olympics the British Olympic Association (BOA) either entered a particular team (such as Cornwall, who represented Great Britain in 1908) or did no enter (as in 1924), while in recent years the problems has been solved by other sports such as hockey (by playing in qualification tournaments as “Great Britain” in the two years leading up to each Games) or football (by not entering at all).

In the case of rugby, World Rugby’s rules prevent the three nations combining in any World Rugby-sponsored tournament, which caused a problem when it was decided that the World Series would be the primary qualification mechanism for the Games. The solution was that the one of the three – England – was selected to attempt to qualify on behalf of the three nations in the 2014/15 series.

This was achieved in London two weekends ago by the England’s men, and in Amsterdam last weekend by the England’s women.

The next question has been how a Great Britain team will be selected, and that was answered today by a joint announcement from the three unions.

A new organisation called “Great Britain Rugby Sevens Limited” has been officially set up and ratified by both the British Olympic Association (BOA) and World Rugby, bringing together  the Rugby Football Union, the Welsh Rugby Union and the Scottish Rugby Union. This will be run by a nine-member committee, with three members from each union, including Scotland’s Toni Blackhurst and Wales’ Julie Paterson.

On the field the performance structure will see Joe Lydon lead joint programmes in all three countries as the overall performance manager.

In order to be eligible for selection, players must meet basic IOC qualification criteria (which means that they must as a minimum hold a British passport – which is not a requirement for World Rugby events) and should have “previous sevens experience at international level” in the 14-month period leading up to the  Rio 2016 Olympic Games in either the World Sevens Series, the European Sevens Championship, or an “Invitational preparation tournament” details of which have yet to be announced but which will presumably (based on other details in the announcement) take place somewhere in Britain in June or July 2016.

Eligible players have to express their interest through their respective home union’s performance programmes.

A recruitment process has already started to look for coaches (head and assistant) for the men and women’s sides with the candidates expected to come from nominations from the home unions. Each of the unions will be represented on the selection panel for the coaching team, as well as an independent from the BOA.

As for the players, time will be very short for selection and very short indeed for preparation as a team. The three nations will continue to play separately until June 2016 when a “wider squad” will be announced which will take part in a "series of training camps", with a final squad of 12 players selected in July 2016 just prior to the start of the Olympic Games.

Performance manager Joe Lydon (who will also be on the committee) said: “To have sevens at the Olympic Games is massive for the sport and we want to make sure we give GB Rugby Sevens the best chance to succeed next year in Rio. The first step was to qualify this year and we are delighted that the England men and women have done that through the first route of qualification process. It is a real testament to the hard work and attitude shown by all the players, coaches and management.

“The next step is to get the GB Rugby Sevens programme operational, particularly focussing around the appointment of the coaching teams and the recruitment of players, as we look ahead to the start of next season. We need to strike a balance between a core group of sevens players whose experience will be vital going into an Olympic campaign and the ability to transition players from the XVs game to enable time to adjust to the unique demands of the sevens game.”