Pools Announced for Olympic 7s: Men: Canada, Fiji, GB, Japan; Women: Canada, France, Fiji, Brazil
The pools were announced for the Olympic 7s, July 26-31 2021.
As expected it’s going to be a tougher journey for the men to make the QF than for the women. There are 12 teams in each competition, 8 make the quarter-finals. The top two finishers in each of the 3 pools plus the 2 best 3rd place finishers will go through.
The 3-0 teams and 2-1 teams will advance, based on last Olympic stats, but the 1-2 teams will be in jeopardy. In 2016, in both the men’s and women’s division, one 1-2 advanced and the other didn’t. For men the point differential that went through was +19 and the one that didn’t was +18, so fine margins. On the women’s side -34 PD went through and -48 didn’t.
The women are in a pool with France, Fiji and Brazil. The only question is whether they advance as the 3-0 or the 2-1, they’ve lost the last 3 matches to France. New Zealand and Australia are likely to go through at 3-0. New Zealand have two tough matches and one they can run up the score, Australia have one tough match and two matches to run up the score. Look for Australia to get #1 seed in the QF, NZ #2 and the winner of France v Canada to get #3. Canada may get Russia, USA, or Great Britain in the QF. Last Olympics Canada ended up in the 4th/5th match against France which they won to put them into the semis.
The men have a tougher road to the QF. Fiji will likely go 3-0 in their pool and last Olympics they were #1 after the pool round with a +40 PD. Canada have to beat GB to ensure a QF spot, if they go 1-2 with only a win over Japan they have to accumulate a decent PD. NZ, Australia, Argentina will likely all go through while accumulating big scores against Korea to pad their PD. That leaves Pool C, the pool of death, with South Africa likely winners but USA, Kenya and Ireland all capable teams.
MEN
WOMEN
