Sevens World Cup may continue after it becomes Olympic sport

The International Rugby Board will look at keeping the World Cup Sevens and playing it between Olympic cycles following the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro when sevens makes its debut as a medal sport. The IRB had previously maintained that the Moscow World Cup would be the last one now that sevens has been included in the Olympics.

But chairman Bernard Lapasset, who was in Singapore last weekend for the Asian qualifiers for the 2013 World Cup Sevens, told the that their position may change.

"If Rio is a success, we could look at the possibility of having a World Cup in 2018, two years after this Olympics and two years before the next Olympics. The middle will be best as we can run a World Cup in between the Olympics. That is something we are looking at, but for the moment all our focus is on the Olympics and the Moscow World Cup," Lapasset said.

"For the moment it is not decided [whether it will be the last World Cup]. We are busy preparing for the Olympics in 2016 and have had no time to look at a World Cup [in 2017]. A future World Cup will depend on the results at the Olympics. If we do well in Rio, and it is a huge success, it could be possible to continue with a World Cup after the Olympics."

Lapasset said the IRB would keep pushing the International Olympic Committee for more places at the Olympics and extending the duration of the tournament from a two-day event. Men and women will contest two golds in sevens, with both competitions restricted to 12 teams.

"We will press for 16 teams, or even more. But for the moment, every team sport at the Olympics apart from football is 12. Football has 16 but they start before the Olympics begin. We want to have our competition inside the Olympics [during its duration]," Lapasset said. " We will have discussions with the IOC, for even a five-day event. At the moment, we need more competition for the 12 teams. It is important to change the format to extend it to four or five days."