Rugby Union at The Summer Olympics - Efforts For Re-inclusion

Efforts For Re-inclusion

Italy in 1960, the Soviet Union in 1980, and South Korea in 1988 made requests to have rugby union brought back. The 1980 request did not pass, and the 1988 games came close but failed to see the sport's admission, which was backed by the International Rugby Football Board (now, International Rugby Board, IRB).

Apart from supporting the individual host cities' requests, the IRB did not focus its own efforts on returning the sport to the Olympics until the early 1990s, when efforts began to reunite the two movements with a series of informal meetings between the then IRB Secretary, Keith Rowlands, and the British Olympic Association Secretary, Dick Palmer. In 1994, when Vernon Pugh QC of Wales was elected Chairman of the IRB, the march towards Olympic recognition began in earnest. Pugh convinced the IRB Council that Olympic membership – initially as a non-participation sport – would be beneficial to rugby and offer the IRB member unions membership of their National Olympic Committees. Many European Federations, such as France, Italy and Romania, had been members of their National Olympic Committees for decades. The demand to get rugby back in the Olympics mounted as more rugby nations from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas joined the IRB, because it was a sport seen as providing a realistic medal opportunity for a number of smaller nations.

A significant step in the process of acceptance back into the Olympic Movement was achieved at a ceremony held in Cardiff in November 1994, when the IRB was officially confirmed as a Recognised International Federation of the IOC. At that ceremony, International Olympic Committee President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, pointed out that rugby's history and values were very much in tune with the Olympic philosophy and traditions. This historic meeting in Cardiff led to IRB representation at annual IOC meetings and consideration for inclusion in the program of future Olympic Games. In 2002, a plan was presented to induct rugby sevens, golf and the Chinese martial art of wushu.

Sevens was one of five sports that submitted a proposal to the IOC at a meeting in Singapore for inclusion in the 2012 games. The IOC stated that no sport would be added unless others were dropped. The IRB was confident that the sport would finally be included in the official Olympic program. However, the selection of two sports out of the five nominees as potential 2012 sports went to squash and karate, as determined by a voting procedure.

Most recently, rugby sevens competed with golf for two available spaces in the 2016 Olympics. The final decision was made at the IOC Session in Copenhagen in October 2009. The IRB used a number of high profile people and events to influence the IOC to include sevens at the 2016 games. In March 2009, two senior delegates from the IOC attended the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Dubai at the invitation of the IRB. The event attracted 78,000 fans over the three days and saw Wales crowned Men’s World Champions and Australia won the first ever Women's World Cup.

Along with the World Cup, the IRB enlisted some of rugby’s biggest names to assist in the bid. In March 2009, Jonah Lomu and Lawrence Dallaglio were announced as ambassadors for the bid and in April 2009 Waisale Serevi was unveiled as an ambassador to coincide with the Oceania National Olympic Committees' general assembly. May 2009 saw the IRB announce that they would drop the Rugby World Cup Sevens in order to improve the chances of the sport being included. The benefit of this move would be to make the Olympics the premier event in international rugby sevens.

As well as rugby sevens, baseball and softball, which were dropped from the Olympic program in 2005, karate, squash, golf and roller sports (inline speed skating) were all seeking to be included in the 2016 games and leaders of the seven sports made formal presentations to the IOC executive board in June 2009. A new system was in place at this session in which a sport now needs only a simple majority rather than the two-thirds majority that was required before.

On 13 August 2009 it was announced that the IOC executive board was recommending rugby sevens for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic Games and on 9 October 2009 the full IOC, at its 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, voted to include Rugby Sevens in the 2016 games.

Separate competitions for men and women will be held, using a similar format to the existing IRB Sevens World Series. The IRB had originally proposed including 12 teams of each sex, but during the IRB's presentation at the IOC Session, two IOC members asked why only 12 teams were included. IRB Chief Executive Mike Miller responded, "We followed the guidance of the Executive Members of the IOC, but if the IOC feels we should have more teams, we will add more."