Men’s Event
Fiji will look to make it three Olympic gold medals in a row. They probably don’t enter this tournament as favourites despite being World Champions. Instead, silver medalists from Tokyo, New Zealand have looked like the number one team. They won the World Series in 2023 winning five events on the way. They were runners-up at the 2022 World Cup despite a Covid-disrupted build-up. That Covid disruption saw them barely play in the 2022 World Series, which instead saw Australia win. Argentina was 2nd in the 2023 World Series with two event wins and has started 2024 in incredible form, winning the World Series. Samoa won two events in 2023 but could only finish sixth overall. France has been placed numerous times over the last two years and finished fourth in the 2023 World Series. They have also recruited Antoine Dupont, a former world rugby player of the year and early signs suggest he will be just as good at sevens. Ireland were the European Games winners in the 2024 World Series and have been on four podiums this year, finishing second overall. South Africa won in Dubai in 2023 and 2024 but hasn’t managed to consistently return to their past form. They won the World Series in 2018 and 2021, finishing second in 2020 and 2022. The United States finished sixth in the 2022 World Series and fifth in 2021. Kenya was third in 2021 but hasn’t been anywhere near as successful since. Japan were third in the 2023 Asian Games whilst Uruguay won the Challenger Series in 2024.
Possibly the most interesting group is the Group A. New Zealand and Ireland will likely be battling ahead of South Africa. Argentina would expect to take Group B ahead of Australia whilst France should beat Fiji in Group C. France will play whoever is runner-up of the first group in a big battle for the medals. Argentina and the Group A winner will expect to progress whilst Australia and Fiji will likely battle for the other spot. I think the semi-finals end up being New Zealand vs Australia and Argentina vs France. I think that the second semi-final probably features the two strongest teams and depends on whether Dupont can drag an inferior French team to gold.
🥇Argentina 🇦🇷
🥈New Zealand 🇳🇿
🥉France 🇫🇷
Women’s Event
New Zealand are heavy favourites here. The reigning Olympic champions, they could only win silver in the 2022 World Cup. As with the men though this was an interrupted preparation. They rebounded to take the 2023 and 2024 World Series adding to 2019 and 2020 crowns. Australia were the benefactors of a sluggish New Zealand winning the 2022 World Cup and World Series. Behind them it is relatively open, United States were 3rd in the 2023 World Series ahead of France whilst they swapped places in 2024. France were an Olympic silver medalist in Tokyo and also have a World Cup silver from 2018. The bronze medalists in Tokyo were Fiji. Since then they have started to go backwards. They finished third in the 2022 World Series but only sixth in 2023. Great Britain were fourth in Tokyo and won the 2023 European Games. China won the 2024 Challenger Series and the 2023 Asian Games. They beat Japan in that final. Ireland have slowly improved, finishing fourth in the 2022 World Series and they took a win in 2024 in Perth. Canada had a fourth in 2018 before taking third the two years after. They won bronze in the 2024 World Series event in Vancouver. Brazil and South Africa are also competing.
This feels like quite a clear tournament to predict. Australia and New Zealand will both win their group and make their way through to the finals. The other semi-finalists will come down to Fiji, France, Ireland and the United States. Especially at home, I have to trust France the most out of those teams. Australia and New Zealand have shared the last six matchups between them so this will be close and competitive but I have to edge to the competition quality of New Zealand.
🥇New Zealand 🇳🇿
🥈Australia 🇦🇺
🥉France 🇫🇷
Comments