Qualifying motion for the Paris 2024 Olympics runs Saturday and Sunday in Langford, B.C.
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Even earlier than qualifying motion for the Paris 2024 Olympics will get rolling on Saturday morning in Langford, two issues are clear: the Canadian ladies are a lock to win the one Olympic qualification spot on the road, whereas on the lads’s aspect both Canada or the U.S. will write their ticket to France a yr from now.
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“Look, with all due respect to the opposite groups, for each ourselves and Canada it’s going to return right down to the ultimate recreation on Sunday,” U.S. head coach Mike Friday advised Postmedia on Thursday.
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Each Friday’s squad and the host Canadians, the lads coached by former participant Sean White, the ladies by Irishman Jack Hanratty, are full-time members of the HSBC SVNS sequence.
The remainder of the sphere will likely be hard-working, speedy, with loads of pluck … however they’re simply not on the identical enjoying subject.
“We’re pumped,” White mentioned. “The large factor for us is we haven’t performed a event for some time. All these video games will current their very own challenges. On any given day, something can occur.”
Is it pre-season or post-season?
The 2 males’s groups haven’t performed since Could, when each competed on the London Sevens.
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In Canada’s case, they completed on a excessive notice, securing the twelfth and last spot for the 2023-24 sequence. That win, defeating Kenya, Uruguay and Tonga, got here per week after the Canadians’ greatest end on the season, a shocking fourth place in Toulouse.
“That seems like a yr in the past,” White mentioned with amusing. However there’s little doubt the late-season success was massive for his staff’s psyche. They lastly discovered some success after an up and down yr, together with a very powerful win they may have exterior of qualifying for Paris: retaining themselves on the rugby sevens sequence, cementing their place as full-time professionals.
“This event is nearly the closure to our season,” White went on. “In September a brand new carded group is available in.
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“London, that was a preview of what we had been on the lookout for right here (in Langford). It’s all the time easy in sevens: if we are able to maintain our roles, we’ll have success.”
The People, however, slumped down the stretch. They began the season effectively, sitting within the prime 5 after the primary two occasions on the calendar.
Then they bumped into accidents, and there was no quarter given by their opponents.
“It was probably the most aggressive world sequence we’ve ever seen,” Friday mentioned, flatly.
“We’ve acquired a squad for the primary time since Dubai (final December). We’re prepared, bodily in an excellent place.”
Friday isn’t a fan of the place this weekend’s event was positioned on the calendar.
“I’ve not been shy in making my views clear on this, on the place it’s positioned. It’s massively disrespectful to the sequence groups concerned,” he mentioned. “I’m immensely disillusioned in participant welfare. We’ve not had an low season. By subsequent summer season, we’ll have been at it for 3 years straight. We may fairly simply have positioned this on the finish of June or put it nearer to the Pan Am video games (in October).”
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The final word begin
The Canadian ladies battled accidents and confidence all season, however Canadian ladies’s coach Jack Hanratty is proud of what his squad realized about itself over the season. And, not like the mens’ coaches, he sees this weekend as just the start of a protracted yr forward.
“In our first two tournaments final season, we ended up getting knocked out by factors distinction. That occurred a 3rd time,” Hanratty defined.
“In later occasions, we had been reliant on different groups to advance. We need to get away from that. Vancouver was a turning level, however we nonetheless wanted some assist.”
Due to accidents, Hanratty used 23 gamers throughout the season. And over the previous two seasons, he has handed debuts to fifteen gamers.
His squad was younger, with numerous studying to do. That’s not the case any extra.
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“The query was, had been we adequate in-house,” he requested rhetorically, earlier than implying that he thought his gamers had taken a giant step up of their self-realization of what profitable a spot within the squad actually means.
“During the last two months, we’ve had a extremely good coaching base: 21 senior, 16 academy,” he mentioned. “That made it a really aggressive coaching setting.”
“One of many largest points this yr was we weren’t favourites,” he went on. “It’s one thing we need to tackle. It’s a strain I’d a lot want to have. We’re in a spot the place we’ve had a extremely good buildup.”
“I feel it’s good to consider what’s on the road as a result of this time, the Olympics will likely be over,” he added.
The format and what’s on the road
The event kicks off Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. — streaming protection out there on the CBC Sports activities and CBC Gem apps — with the majority of pool play operating by way of the top of Saturday. The boys’s event is split into two swimming pools, with the People in a three-team pool, the Canadians 4.
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Sunday will see semi-finals and finals for the lads — the lads’s last is at 4:30 p.m. — whereas the ladies’s occasion encompasses a five-team spherical robin the place pool play begins on Saturday and concludes on Sunday morning, establishing the highest two ladies’s groups to face off in a last at 5:30 p.m.
Winners of the finals will qualify straight for the Olympics subsequent summer season, whereas the second- and third-placed groups will progress to a last international qualification event, set for subsequent June.
The American ladies aren’t right here this weekend, as they’ve already certified for Paris by ending third total final season (the highest 4 groups on the 2022-23 season robotically certified).
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