"Rugby union at the Summer Olympics Rugby union has been a men's medal sport at the modern Summer Olympic Games, being played at four of the first seven competitions. The sport debuted at the 1900 Paris games where the gold medal was won by the host nation. It was subsequently featured at the London games in 1908, the Antwerp games in 1920 and the Paris games in 1924. The United States is the most successful nation in Olympic rugby tournaments, having won the gold medal in both 1920 and 1924; France has the most medals, one gold (in 1900) and"
"teams, into an under-20 age group The sport of rugby union has been played at the Summer Olympics on four occasions, with the last being in 1924. The winners, and thus the reigning champions, were the U.S. team. Rugby union made one more appearance as a demonstration event but was then removed from the Games. World Rugby has most recently been very keen to see it return to the Games and is adamant that the sport (specifically referring to rugby sevens) satisfies every respect of the criteria set out in the Olympic Charter. The main problem for reintroducing the 15-man"
"Unions in membership and it is expected to grow into the 205 countries that make up the Olympic movement as Sevens becomes an official competitive part of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Part of the appeal of Sevens is the spreading of the players on the field that takes place as fewer players cover the same size field covered by 15 players in traditional rugby and shorter time periods, which makes the game proceed at a much quicker pace. Indeed, noted Sports Historian Jack Pollard noted that ""Sevens"
"the Summer Olympics and the Home Nations Championship/Five Nations Championship. Rugby union was played at the Summer Olympics on four occasions, 1900, 1908, 1920 and 1924 Although these competitions did not involve full national sides, and usually only had three or four participating nations at any individual event. The International Championship/Five Nations has been played since 1883. It is one of the oldest international rugby tournaments, involving only European nations. There are several stories that depict suggestions of staging a rugby union world cup before the 1980s. One of the earliest known pioneers was Harold Tolhurst, an Australian player who"
"union competition is the Six Nations Championship, starting in 1883 with games played between England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. France joined in 1910 and Italy in 2000. In 1996 the Southern Hemisphere teams of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand started their own annual international competition known as the Tri Nations; it adopted its current name of The Rugby Championship when Argentina joined in 2012. Rugby union was previously a medal sport at four Olympic games, in Paris (1900 and 1924), London (1908) and Antwerp (1920), and returned to the Olympics in 2016 in the sevens form. Rugby union sevens"
"The International Olympic Committee voted in 2009 to include rugby sevens on the program for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There were two open spots for sports and initially seven sports began the bidding for inclusion in the 2016 program. The event debuted in an Olympic program at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics. Two issues related to differences between the structures of rugby union and the Olympics were sorted out before the 2016 Olympic Games. The issue of a combined British team has proven less of a problem in rugby union. World Rugby chief executive Mike"
"between its debut at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, Japan, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The only occasions in that period which they did not attend was at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Soviet Union. On both occasions, it was because they had joined with international boycotts of the events. The first boycott was because of the inclusion of the New Zealand team at the Games despite the breach of the international sports boycott of South Africa by the nation's rugby union team shortly"
"tournament. The statistics listed for events and tries refer to statistics generated in World Rugby Sevens Series tournaments. The following players who have been regular members of the squad during the past 12 months have not been included in the current squad: Although rugby union had previously been played at the Olympics (most recently in 1924), rugby sevens made its debut at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. defeated Canada 21–5 in the final of the 2015 NACRA Sevens to qualify for the 2016 Olympics. At the 2016 Olympics, the U.S. went 1–2 in pool play, narrowly"
"been played at the Olympics. The gold medal for Fiji represented the first Olympic medal earned by Fiji at any Olympics. Great Britain won silver and South Africa defeated Japan to win the bronze medal. With Brazil being the hosts, their team automatically qualified despite their sevens team not regularly appearing in the World Rugby Sevens Series. The 2014–15 Sevens World Series was the initial stage of qualification, with the top 4 teams at the end of the series gaining qualification to the 2016 Olympic Games. Between June and September 2015, each of the six regional rugby unions held an"
"tournament, SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand and Australian Rugby) invited the Argentine Rugby Union (UAR) to join an expanded Four Nations tournament in 2012. The competition has been officially rechristened as The Rugby Championship beginning with the 2012 edition. The competition reverted to the Tri Nations' original home-and-away format, but now involving four teams. In World Cup years, an abbreviated tournament is held in which each team plays the others only once. New Zealand are the current champions, having won the 2018 title with a round to spare. Rugby union was played at the Olympic Games in 1900, 1908, 1920"
"two silvers (in 1920 and 1924). Shortly after the 1924 games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) dropped rugby union as an Olympic sport. Since then there have been numerous attempts to bring the sport back to the Olympic programme. In October 2009 the IOC voted at its session in Copenhagen to include the sevens version of the sport in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The event made its debut in an Olympic programme at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics. The sport was introduced by Pierre de Coubertin, who is famous for reviving the modern Olympics. He also"
"between the two teams. Though rugby had attracted bigger crowds than the track and field events in 1924, it was dropped from next Games and has not been included since. In October 2009, the International Olympic Committee voted to return a form of rugby to the Olympics, with rugby sevens contested for the first time in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Between 1905 and 1908, all three major Southern Hemisphere rugby countries sent their first touring teams to the Northern Hemisphere: New Zealand in 1905, followed by South Africa in 1906 and then Australia in 1908. All three teams brought"
"compete separately in international competition, it was suggested that if any of them gained a qualifying spot then Great Britain would qualify. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Rugby Board (IRB), stated that Great Britain must select a lead nation to be the only one able to gain the qualification spot. The individual British rugby unions selected England to be the lead nation as the Rugby Football Union was the only British union to fund a full-time rugby sevens programme. England secured Great Britain's qualification to the 2016 Summer Olympics by finishing fourth in the 2015 Sevens"
"as an Olympic sport from the 2016 Olympics onwards. The present gold medal holders in the sevens tournament, held in 2014, are Japan in the men's event and China in the women's. Women's international rugby union began in 1982, with a match between France and the Netherlands played in Utrecht. As of 2009 over six hundred women's internationals have been played by over forty different nations. The first Women's Rugby World Cup was held in Wales in 1991, and was won by the United States. The second tournament took place in 1994, and from that time through 2014 was held"
"Olympic qualification event, where one team from each region qualified, bringing the total up to 11 teams qualified. The final spot was determined by a repechage tournament held in Monaco, where the winner of that event became the final team to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games. As a result of England finishing fourth in the 2014–15 Sevens World Series, Great Britain were awarded a spot in the Olympic Games, despite the other nations failing to qualify in the top 4. This is because Great Britain compete as one union in the Olympics and as several in international rugby (Rugby"
"from Africa, 3 from Asia, 2 from Oceania, 2 from North America and 2 from South America. As a result of Great Britain competing as one union in the Olympics and as several in international rugby (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Irish players that choose to play for the Irish Rugby Union), should one of either the England, Wales or Scotland teams qualify then Great Britain will be awarded a spot in the Olympic Games. These three British unions agreed in advance of the 2013–14 men's and women's Sevens World Series that their highest-finishing teams in that season would represent"
"of each sex, the same number as other team ball sports events. During the IRB's presentation at the IOC Session, two IOC members asked why only 12 teams were included. IRB Chief Executive Mike Miller responded, ""We followed the guidance of the Executive Members of the IOC, but if the IOC feels we should have more teams, we will add more."" Twelve rugby teams participate in the men’s and women’s competitions, qualifying through one of the four following routes: Both the men’s and women’s competition consist of two parts — pool play followed by a knockout round. For pool play,"
"Board (now World Rugby) stated that if Olympic rugby sevens were added to the Rio de Janeiro games, their intention was to end the World Cup Sevens. In 2013, following two weeks of consultation, the board announced that the competition would be retained and integrated into the Olympic calendar, meaning that a meaningful elite level competition would take place every two years from 2016. In common with other Olympic team sports, the World Cup hosts a larger number of teams than the Olympic tournament. The first competition after Olympic integration took place in 2018, which entailed a one-off five-year gap"
"becoming the only team to win gold twice in the sport. In 2009 the International Olympic Committee voted with a majority of 81 to 8 that rugby union be reinstated as an Olympic sport in at least the 2016 and 2020 games, but in the sevens, 4-day tournament format. This is something the rugby world has aspired to for a long time and Bernard Lapasset, president of the International Rugby Board, said the Olympic gold medal would be considered to be ""the pinnacle of our sport"" (Rugby Sevens). Rugby sevens has been played at the Commonwealth Games since the 1998"
"since 1964 because of its apartheid politics. Rugby union not being an Olympic sport, the IOC declined to exclude New Zealand. Italy in 1960, the Soviet Union in 1980, and South Korea in 1988 made requests to have rugby union brought back. The 1980 request did not pass, and the 1988 games came close but failed to see the sport's admission, which was backed by the International Rugby Football Board (now, World Rugby (WR)). Apart from supporting the individual host cities' requests, the IRB did not focus its own efforts on returning the sport to the Olympics until the early"
"and Uruguay. Rugby Union is administered by World Rugby (WR), whose headquarters are located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the national sport in New Zealand, Wales, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Georgia and Madagascar, and is the most popular form of rugby globally. The Olympic Games have admitted the seven-a-side version of the game, known as Rugby sevens, into the programme from Rio de Janeiro in 2016 onwards. There was a possibility sevens would be a demonstration sport at the 2012 London Olympics but many sports including sevens were dropped. In Canada and the United States, rugby union evolved into gridiron football."
"Olympics, all compete separately within international sevens competition. It was suggested that if any of them finished in an Olympic qualifying spot then Great Britain would qualify through them. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Rugby Board (IRB) clarified that Great Britain must select only one nation to be the only one able to obtain qualification as it was viewed that the three individual nations could give Great Britain three chances to qualify compared with other nations only having one. The individual British rugby unions selected England to be the lead nation due to their professional sevens set-up."
"and is relatively inexpensive to play. Not only is the sevens game successful in the context of the Sevens World Series and World Cup Sevens, it is also very successfully played in the Commonwealth Games; the sevens tournament at the 2006 Games in Melbourne set all-time attendance records for a sevens tournament. As a result of this, World Rugby applied to the International Olympic Committee for a Sevens tournament to form part of the Olympics. Subsequently, Sevens was accepted into the Summer Olympic Games and was first played in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. The laws of rugby union are"
"and 2007, respectively. The worst results were by Australia in 1995 and South Africa in 2011, both exiting in the quarter-finals. National team appearances in the Rugby World Cup This article presents the national team appearances in the Rugby World Cup. The article tracks the appearances, results, and debuts for all national teams that have participated in at least one Rugby World Cup. For each tournament, the number of teams in each finals tournament (in brackets) are shown. 25 nations have thus far qualified for the Rugby World Cup. From 1987 until 2011, each edition featured at least one new"
"United States national rugby union team The United States national rugby union team, nicknamed the Eagles, is controlled by USA Rugby. USA Rugby is a member of Rugby Americas North, one of six regional governing bodies under World Rugby. Until sevens made its debut at the 2016 Rio Games, the United States was the reigning Olympic champion in rugby, having won gold at the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics. As of November 26, 2018, the Eagles are ranked 12th in the world by the World Rugby Rankings. Their previous highest ranking, achieved ahead of the 2007 World Cup, was 14th;"
"England and New Zealand. The Rugby League World Cup is the highest form of representative rugby league and currently features 14 teams. Those which have contested World Cups are; Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Fiji, Wales, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Ireland, USA, Scotland, Italy, Tonga, Cook Islands, Lebanon, Russia and South Africa. The current World Champions are Australia, who won the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. The Asia-Pacific Rugby League Confederation's purpose is to spread the sport of rugby league throughout their region along with other governing bodies such as the ARL and NZRL. Since rugby league was introduced to"
"competition (Australia eleven times, Great Britain three times and New Zealand once). Australia, France and New Zealand are the only teams to have played in all tournaments (Great Britain has been split into England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland since 1995, while England and Wales had previously competed as separate teams in the 1975 World Cup). Since 2000, the RLIF has also organised World Cups for women, students and other categories. The 2017 Rugby League World Cup was held in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea which was won by Australia. The Rugby League World Cup was an initiative of"
"Africa, Americas North, Asia, Europe, South America and Oceania. World Rugby was founded as the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) in 1886 by Scotland, Wales and Ireland, with England joining in 1890. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa became full members in 1949. France became a member in 1978 and a further eighty members joined from 1987 to 1999. The body was renamed the International Rugby Board (IRB) in 1998, and took up its current name of World Rugby in November 2014. In 2009, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to include rugby sevens in the 2016 Summer Olympics. World"
"team to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games. As a result of England finishing fourth in the 2014–15 Sevens World Series, Great Britain were awarded a spot in the Olympic games, despite the other nations failing to qualify in the top 4. This is because Great Britain compete as one union in the Olympics and as several in international rugby (England, Wales, Scotland and a combined union from Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland), which meant should one of either the England, Wales or Scotland teams qualify, then Great Britain would be awarded a spot in the Olympic Games. It"
"in the Olympic Games at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico. The country has twice boycotted the Olympic Games, first was because of the inclusion of the New Zealand team at the 1976 Summer Olympics despite the breach of the international sports boycott of South Africa by the nation's rugby union team shortly prior. Then in 1980, the country was one of several who joined in with a United States led boycott over the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. The highest number of Central African athletes entered in a team for an Olympics is 15,"
"Olympics – the last time 15-player rugby would be played as an Olympic sport – where the United States successfully defended their title. The French rugby union was ousted from the Five Nations championship on charges of player violence and professionalism in 1932. In 1934, Rugby league was introduced to France, half a century after the amateur code had established itself in the country. Also in 1934, FIRA (Federation of Amateur Rugby) was founded by Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Catalonia (Spain), and Sweden. During the second World War, the French Rugby Union actively collaborated with the Vichy"
"Japan, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. The Americas Rugby Championship pits the six highest ranked rugby nations in North and South America (Argentina XV, Brazil, Canada, Chile, United States, and Uruguay). It was first contested in 2016. Rugby was included an Olympic sport four times from 1900 to 1924, with the United States winning the last two of those tournaments — 1920 and 1924. After a lengthy absence, rugby returned to the Summer Olympics in 2016, albeit in the rugby sevens format. All Time Active Players Previous record holders: All Time Active Players All Time Active Players Below is table of"
"Rugby sevens at the 2016 Summer Olympics Rugby sevens at the 2016 Summer Olympics was held over six days in August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. The 2016 Olympics was the debut for rugby sevens at the Summer Olympics, though rugby union was last played at the 1924 games. The usual laws of rugby sevens applied. Though rugby has not been featured in the Olympics since the 1924 Summer Olympics in any form, the IOC chose to re-introduce the seven-a-side version of the sport for the games. The sport will feature for this olympics and the 2020 Summer Olympics. The"