GRR: Eagle Women
This is an opinion column by Goff Rugby Report editor Alex Goff - Criticism of an Olympic performance is a dicey thing; you have to be aware that being at the Olympics is, for most athletes, a once-in-a-lifetime event, something to be celebrated, and I’m not really all that interested in bringing a player’s pride in representing her nation at Rio down all that far.
It's 5th place for the USA Women's 7s team at the Olympics in Rio, and at times the Eagles showed those flashes that might have been good enough for a medal.
The USA got some measure of revenge over Fiji, winning the 5th place semifinal against the Fijians in RIo.
The USA’s Olympic medal dreams may be over, but there are still rugby games to be played and national pride at stake. The Eagles lost to Fiji in the opening game of their Olympics thanks to mistakes prompted by Fiji’s blitz’ defense.
There will be no Olympic medal for the USA Women’s 7s team after the Eagles lost a tight, tense quarterfinal 5-0 to New Zealand Sunday at Deordoro Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
The quarterfinals for the inaugural Olympic Games women's rugby sevens competition have been confirmed after the final pool games in Sunday's morning session at the Deodoro Stadium.