The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE have been drawn to face Samoa, Ireland, Tonga as well as Mexico at next’s month’s final Olympic qualifier to be held at the Stade Louis II in Monaco.
The draw was conducted last Tuesday with the 10 men’s teams thrown into the hat to decide who gets into the two pools for the event scheduled for 19-20 June.
Zimbabwe were drawn against HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series core teams Samoa and Ireland in Pool A together with Tonga and Mexico. Teams will play against all four opponents in their pools with the top two teams from each pool progressing through two knockout stages, culminating in a winner being decided in the final.
According to World Rugby, France were the top seeded team based on their performances in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series where they finished sixth in 2020 and they are drawn in Pool B along with Hong Kong, Chile, Uganda and Jamaica.
From Africa, Kenya and South Africa have already qualified for the Olympics, with Zimbabwe and Uganda standing a chance of booking at a place for Tokyo.
Uganda were runners up to Kenya at the 2019 Rugby Africa’s Men’s Sevens held in South Africa where Zimbabwe finished third.
With travel restrictions having limited opportunities for the African teams to play the game, Rugby Africa have organized a Sevens Solidarity Camp in Stellenbosch, South Africa, which comes to an end on Sunday. Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda are the men’s teams taking part in the camp.
Rugby Sevens is expected to be one of the most anticipated events of the Tokyo Games, following the outstanding success of Rugby World Cup in 2019 in Japan, which captured the nation’s imagination with record-breaking broadcast audiences and huge numbers of new rugby fans across Japan and Asia.
Sevens rugby make a return to the biggest sporting event in the world at the Rio Olympics in 2016 where Fiji were the men’s champions and Australia took the women’s gold medal. -@Mdawini_29
