In the ancient Olympics, a laurel wreath was placed on the heads of the champions.
But the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley warned: “Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.”
The Langford-based Canadian women’s rugby sevens team won silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics but that is now in the annals and the program knows it can’t rest on those metaphorical laurels.
The road to Los Angeles 2028 began this weekend with the opening of the 2025 World Series Dubai Sevens.
Playing its first games since reaching the podium in Paris, the now rebuilding and decentralized Canadian team went 1-2 in pool play on Saturday with the 38-12 victory over Brazil enough to advance the Canadians to a quarter-final date past press time against Australia in a reprise of last summer’s Olympic semifinal in which the Canucks upset the Aussies at the Stade de France.
Canada opened pool play in Dubai with a 40-5 loss to Japan and 38-5 loss to New Zealand — the latter a reprise of the 2024 Olympic final won 19-12 by the Kiwis — to indicate it could be a long road back to the podium for Canada at Los Angeles.
Canada is looking to avoid losing its way, as it did following its breakthrough bronze medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics, which was followed by a disastrous showing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
But the Canadians have time, promise and knowledge on their side in this rebuild.
Only four medallists from the Paris Olympics are on the Canadian roster in Dubai — Carissa Norsten from the University of Victoria Vikes and UVic alumnus Shalaya Valenzuela, along with Piper Logan and Asia Hogan-Rochester.
Making their senior international debuts in Dubai are Adia Pye of Victoria, a two-sport basketball and rugby star out of Claremont Secondary, and University of Victoria Vikes player Maya Addai.
“We are proud of our performance at the Paris Olympics, but to stay near the top, we need to solidify our foundations and keep the program successful over the next four years leading to the 2028 Olympic Games,” new Canadian head coach Jocelyn Barrieau said in a statement.
Canada now moves on to the Cape Town Sevens next weekend.
The World Series will resume next year Down Under with the Perth Sevens on Jan. 24-26. The Canada Sevens will be held Feb. 21-23 at B.C. Place.
The Canadian men’s sevens team, meanwhile, won the North American and Caribbean play-in tournament last weekend in Trinidad and Tobago by going undefeated with blowout results. It earned Canada the regional berth into the 2025 World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger Series, with the dates and venue to be announced.
The top four teams from the Sevens Challenger Series will earn berths into the promotion-relegation play-off to take place May 3-4 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, in which four spots into the top-tier HSBC World Series for 2026 will be on the line in a tournament that will also include the bottom-four teams from 2025.
The Canadian men’s sevens team, coached by Sean White of Victoria, was an Olympic quarter-finalist at Tokyo but faced a steep rebuild following the retirements of veteran players such as Connor Braid of Victoria, former UVic Vikes great Nathan Hirayama and Harry Jones of North Vancouver. The program is now in a step-by-step slog to get back into the top tier of nations.
