Last chance saloon for Olympic places at the World Rugby Sevens Repechage in Monaco

France are “craving success”; Uganda say “the Olympics will change a lot for us”; Hong Kong, China “brought a different slant to training” – what is certain from all nations contending the final Olympic places at this weekend's Monaco Rugby Sevens Repechage is that it is the last chance for two women's teams and one men's team to book their place at Tokyo 2020, taking place in 2021.

Twelve women's and 10 men's teams will compete in the one-off tournament, which takes place from 18-20 June. The top two from each group and two best third-placed teams advance to the knockout stage. A revised format for the men’s competition will see two games played on Friday (18 June) to maintain player welfare guidelines for World Rugby sevens tournaments.

The men’s tournament will feature Chile, France, Hong Kong, China, Ireland, Jamaica, Mexico, Samoa, Tonga, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The successful side, who will need to win the final on Sunday to claim their place, will join those nations already qualified. These are Japan, Fiji, United States, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Kenya and Republic of Korea.

The women’s competition features Argentina, Colombia, France, Hong Kong, China, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Samoa and Tunisia. The two coming through on Sunday will join Japan, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Great Britain, Kenya, Fiji and People's Republic of China at the Summer Games.

Big kahunas such as France and Hong Kong China in both the men’s and women’s tournaments, and Ireland in the men’s, feel they should have qualified directly so the pressure is on to stake their places. But the likes of Madagascar women and Uganda men won’t baulk at the opportunity presented at the final showdown.

Tokyo 2020 take a look at some of the teams who are hoping to make the most of their opportunity in the last chance saloon.

Kazakhstan women

“For me personally, this is the dream of my whole life. It would become a definitive feature [of my career], the result of all my previous labours, efforts and goals.” So said Kazakhstan’s women’s coach, Anna Yakovleva, who had hoped to sign off from her playing career with a trip to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Instead, the team just fell short, with Yakovleva captaining her teammates to fourth at the Olympic Repechage tournament in Dublin five years ago. But Yakovleva remains confident she can help create history this weekend from the sidelines.

“For our country, this would be a historic moment,” Yakovleva told World Rugby. “We would be the first [team] to represent Kazakhstan at the Olympics in this sport!”

After helping her side qualify to this qualifying tournament as a player in 2019, Yakovleva, is still adjusting to the role of coach, discovering, “many new tasks, emotions and sometimes even professions”.

Experienced as a player, a rookie as a coach, Yakovleva is using all her experience to prepare her squad for their opening match against Jamaica on Saturday.

Madagascar women

There was a chance that Madagascar women would not even make it to this tournament, due to potential problems returning home from Monaco due to COVID travel restrictions, but the squad are used to battling adversity on their path to gaining traction on the international stage.

Frederic Dumant, a former Racing 92 player with the under-20s, and now marketing consultant for the Madagascar Rugby Union, worked closely with World Rugby and the authorities to get the players to the event. "The teams are used to last-minute transport problems,” he said.

It will be the second time the Ladies Makis Sevens have participated in a repechage, the previous being in Dublin in July 2016, in which they didn’t make it past the group stage. But, with a new generation of players, they are hoping for a chance to improve on their one match win, against Zimbabwe in the previous edition and gain more experience on the international stage.

The team have little opportunity to train but did manage to play in a ten-day training camp in Japan in September 2019 with the Colombian team, one of the teams in Pool C at this tournament. They will also face big hitters France and Hong Kong, China.

A joint preparation camp in Tunis in May at the Rugby Africa Solidarity Sevens, alongside Kenya and Tunisia, helped with preparations, but the team are realistic in their aims, wanting to “shine more than in Dublin", says Dumant.

Colombia women

If there’s a country that knows what it’s like to qualify to an Olympic Games from this tournament it’s Colombia women, who now have a taste for the Olympics that they want to repeat. Competing at Rio 2016 after qualifying via this same tournament in 2016, the team will be eager to repeat past experiences such as seeing the likes of legendary American swimmer Michael Phelps.

Despite not winning a match in Brazil, the impact of their participation at the Olympic Games was huge. Camila Lopera, who is trying to qualify with her team for her second Olympics, knows exactly what qualifying could mean for her sport. “[Rio] generated more development and support for us as players – physios, medical staff, nutrition, financial and education support,” she said.

David Jaramillo, Colombian coach since 2017 agrees. “Playing the 2016 Games put us in focus, allowed us to leave the back of the room and be placed in the front row. Schools and universities, World Rugby and Sudamerica Rugby started to pay more attention to us.”

In Monaco, Colombia will again draw the limelight and want another experience at an Olympic Games to boot.

Uganda Cranes men

Uganda’s Kenyan coach, Tolbert Onyango, believes qualifying for the Olympic Games could have a transformative impact on rugby sevens in the country. “There will be kids around our playing fields in Uganda looking at what the national team is doing and having some self-belief that there is a pathway for me to perform at the highest level.”

COVID has had an impact on all the teams, with Uganda having to contend with a nationwide curfew in which people have to be home by 9pm every night. With rugby a semi-professional sport in the country, Onyango’s squad must train early in the morning as they head to jobs or to study during the day.

“In the evening it's almost impossible to get a session in after work and then people get home before curfew time,” Onyango told World Rugby. “Getting to the Olympics will change a lot for us.”

Hong Kong, China's men’s and women’s rugby

Hong Kong, China is a strong rugby 7s nation but joins France, Jamaica, Mexico and Samoa in having both men’s and women’s teams trying to qualify for Tokyo. Both sides have enjoyed access to the top-class facilities at the Hong Kong Institute of Sport in the build-up to the Olympic Games Sevens Repechage, but replicating match fitness is more of a challenge.

So Celtic coaches, Paul John – a former Wales international rugby union player with 10 caps – for the men’s side and Scot, Iain Monaghan, for the women, have been creative in keeping fitness high on the agenda, literally climbing mountains to do so.

Monaghan revealed to World Rugby: “We shaped training around going up the seven summits of the world (Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Mount Vinson and Carstensz Pyramid). Needless to say, I wasn’t the most liked coach at that time because they were worked, physically,” he said.

“But with that it allowed us to learn about the different cultures of the teams we will play and where they come from, and the history of their sport."

“We set out tasks like passing the ball every day the equivalent distance it would take to climb one of the mountains, we camped out and learnt how to cook different national dishes, and learnt about tribes and their values and what makes them survive so long, and how we could maybe bring that into our high-performance environment… things that gave a different slant to training.”

Both the women’s and men’s teams were one win away from directly qualifying for the Tokyo Games, after reaching the final of the Asia Rugby qualification tournament in 2019. The women were well beaten by People's Republic of China 33-0, but the men suffered a sudden-death defeat to Korea, which they will want to salve with a win in Monaco and a ticket to the Games.

Tonga men

Another strong rugby nation, Tonga nevertheless have it all to do courtesy of global COVID-19 restrictions. Tonga sevens head coach Tevita Tu’ifua is unable to use his usual New Zealand-based players for the competition, due to travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

So he called up California-based Adriaan Ferris and former Tonga captain Viliami Vaki, currently coaching in Italy, to form a team from scratch with European-based players, for this tournament. Ferris is head coach and Vaki team manager.

Ferris and Vaki will meet up with their players for the first time today (Wednesday), with the exact make-up of the squad not officially confirmed.

“We're in a no-lose situation, we're in a win-win,” said Ferris ahead of the tournament. “We get together, play a bit of footy, have some fun, reconnect, we will be capping a handful of players for the future of Tonga rugby and so, all in all, we've got an opportunity and we're really looking forward to it.”

“We have a playing group that are busting at the chops to get together, there's nothing greater than playing for your country,” he said. “So, I guess what we're doing is we're really just focused on just one tournament, and if anybody knows anything about sevens, anything can happen on the day.”

Rugby 7s will take place between 26-31 July, 2021 at the Tokyo Stadium at Tokyo 2020.