Hong Kong showcase remains sevens jewel in the crown even as Rio promises golden prize
As rugby sevens returns to the Olympic fold after more than 90 years in the wilderness, the Hong Kong showpiece remains in rude health
For 41 editions now the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens have been the centre of the game’s universe, the showcase that has gathered the faithful – on the field and off – for a weekend more annual pilgrimage now that simply a sports event.
Defending champions Fiji come back to their home away from a home that sits battered and bruised after the destruction wrought by Cyclone Winston in February
They’ve returned again this April, both players and those hordes, to a different time slot on the calendar due the game’s pending adoption by the Olympic family in August and due to the ever-expanding global reach of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
There was a fear, maybe a whisper of it, that this might lessen the impact of an event here in Hong Kong that, ironically, inspired the IOC to turn back to rugby after the game’s absence from their line-up since 1924.
How the game – and the world – has turned since then. At those Games in Paris, it was a rag-tag bunch of Americans who lifted the gold, much to the shock of the locals.
The Olympic leaders of the time said enough was enough and it took until a few of them happened to find themselves in the Hong Kong Stadium come one Sevens Sunday for the penny to drop. They came a few years back now, they saw, and they quite fancied a slice of the sevens pie for themselves.
Seasoned sevens stars and upstarts on the rise in the game have been joined by a collection of the game’s 15-a-side community – some of them household names – as the battle for a place in the final 12 players allowed to go to Rio have commenced in earnest.
