One last chance for Britain's rugby sevens men's side to qualify for Paris 2024

It's win or bust for GB men and the 10 other teams taking part in the World Rugby Sevens Repechage 2024 tournament in Monaco from Friday (21 June) to Sunday (23 June).

The winners that emerge from each of the 11 men's sides and 11 women's teams across the three days will secure the final spots available for Paris 2024.

Originally scheduled for 12 nations each, World Rugby confirmed the withdrawal of both Papua New Guinea teams "for reasons including player welfare, due to the teams not securing the necessary travel documentation to meet their pre-tournament arrival deadline".

GB women, meanwhile, have already qualified for the rugby sevens tournament in Paris courtesy of winning European Games gold in 2023, and announced on Wednesday (19 June) the side that will take to the iconic Stade de France in Saint-Denis from 24-30 July.

But the British men have it all to do.

• Olympic Games Paris 2024 rugby sevens schedule

* As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024. Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.

GB men's rugby sevens – the road to Paris 2024 so far

The squad find themselves in this precarious position after finishing ninth during the 2022-23 World Rugby Sevens Series, missing out on the top four automatic qualifying spots for Paris. They then lost to Ireland in the final of the 2023 European Games to miss out on the regional qualifying place.

Disappointing as it was for GB men to finish off the podium at Tokyo 2020 in the dreaded fourth place, it will be even more heart-breaking not to progress from this campaign to try to emulate or better their performance from Rio 2016 in which they claimed silver, to Fiji's gold.

Now the squad are set to vie with South Africa, Chile, Tonga, Mexico, Canada, Uganda, People's Republic of China, Spain, Hong Kong, China, and Brazil for the last ticket to France.

South Africa, who lost out to Kenya in the regional qualifying, will likely pose the biggest threat to the British side. The bronze medallists in Brazil were knocked out in the first round in Tokyo to Argentina with the South Americans going on to beat Team GB in the bronze-medal match.

So both nations are desperate to put in a better showing at the Olympic Games this time around but need to get there first, and that includes taking on the likes of Canada who could also challenge.

The North Americans came within one game of qualifying for Paris 2024 but were defeated by the United States 24-14 in the area's qualification tournament, so the in-form side will be bristling with unfinished business.

Impi Visser said of his South African side: “We really did ourselves no favours this time around. But luckily for us, we have one more opportunity and this time we must make it work.”

Great Britain, and other nations, are very much of the same mind. There will be fireworks.