The South Africa women’s Sevens rugby team bagged their first win at the Paris 2024 Olympics after defeating Fiji 21-15 on Tuesday to finish the competition in 11th place.
The Blazeboks lost all their three group games against Australia (34-5), Ireland (38-0) and Great Britain (26-17).
This was followed by a narrow 15-12 loss to Japan in the 9th-12th place playoffs semis.
The game against Fiji was therefore the last chance to bag win which they did courtesy of tries from Nadine Roos (two) and Zintle Mpupha while all the conversation goals came from Roos.
The South Africa women’s Sevens rugby team are appearing at the Olympics for the first time having qualified for the 2016 and 2020 events but did not enter the tournament due to the South African Olympic Committee (SASCOC) rules which did not allow qualification via winning continental titles.
A well deserved victory for our #BokWomen7s in the final match of their 2024 Paris Olympic campaign.#Paris2024 #RiseUp pic.twitter.com/THpEnnMlEj
— SA Women’s Rugby (@WomenBoks) July 30, 2024
In other results, Japan defeated Brazil 38-7 to finish in ninth place while France took fifth place after defeating China 21-7, and Great Britain finished seventh following their 28-12 victory over the Republic of Ireland.
New Zealand won the gold medal after defeating Canada 19-12 in the final while the United States took the bronze medal by getting the better of Australia 14-12.
