Golden opportunity for Pacific Islands rugby.

Rugby Sevens was given the highest possible accolade last Friday, when the IOC voted overwhelmingly - by 81 votes to 8 - to include it in the Olympic Games of 2016 and 2020.

Nowhere in the world will the announcement have been greeted by greater excitement and fanfare than in Fiji and the rest of the Pacific Islands, where rugby took on a whole new dimension almost overnight.

Already the sport of the people, Rugby and Sevens now offers a pathway to Olympic Gold.

"Not only is this great for Rugby, it's also great for the whole of sport throughout the Pacific Island region," said Will Glenwright, the IRB General Manager for Oceania.

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"In over 114 years of Olympic competition, the Pacific Islands have only ever won one Olympic medal, and that was a silver medal to a Tongan boxer, Paea Wolfgramm, in Atlanta in 1996.

"So not only now is there another sport that the islands can compete in, this is a sport that the Pacific Islands are genuine world leaders in, and now that we're an Olympic sport we have more countries within our region with a genuine chance of winning a medal.

"That, in turn, is going to change the focus of governments, it will change the focus of National Olympic Committees and it's going to change the focus of our member unions. How we address that is going to be a huge challenge."

Capable of beating the best

Neither is Glenwright's focus and energy channelled solely into the larger island nations of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, in addition to rugby superpowers New Zealand and Australia. There are several other nations operating under his watch that, given the opportunity, have also greatly impressed on the biggest stage in Sevens.

"Sevens rugby is a big sport in the Pacific Islands region, and countries like Papua New Guinea, Niue and the Cook Islands all have a very good record when they've competed on the IRB Sevens World Series," added Glenwright.

"They've all knocked off tier one unions and they've all, at different times, had fantastic results, so it's important that we work with all of our member unions to grow the game of Sevens rugby and prepare the whole region for the Olympic Games.

"It's not even just about the Olympic Games either. The Olympic qualification tournament in our region is going to be a mighty big affair and fiercely contested because on their day - and this is the beauty of Rugby Sevens - there's more than three or four countries that could qualify for this tournament and then go on to challenge for an Olympic medal."

Will Glenwright was talking with Total Rugby

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Source IRB.com