Megan Jones and Celia Quansah: Rugby sevens power couple aiming for the podium at Paris 2024

Teammates on the field and partners off it, Great Britain’s Megan Jones and Celia Quansah are on a quest for rugby sevens gold at Paris 2024 - and they’ll be battling hard to win it together. 

Jones and Quansah met at Loughborough University, where they played sevens together after Quansah had moved away from her initial first love of athletics and taken up rugby as “something fun” to try. It’s also where they fell head over heels for each other and began a relationship that holds strong to this day - even if it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. 

“I actually didn’t really fancy Celia,” the Cardiff-born Jones explained in an interview with Team GB. “As I got to know her, she was so kind, empathetic and compassionate. All the things that I lack! The more we spoke, the more I started to fancy her and love her more. We realised we are soulmates, which is crazy, because not many people can say that I don’t think."

The couple’s journey as teammates has seen them compete together on the highest stage, at club level for Wasps and at international level for Great Britain, who they both represented at Tokyo 2020. 

And with less than 18 months to go until Paris 2024, both are determined to bring home a medal for Team GB after falling agonisingly close to the podium when they were part of the team that finished fourth in Tokyo in 2021. 

“We can hold ourselves accountable,” Jones says of their failure to medal at the last Olympic Games. “Even when we get home, we’re always reminding each other, we need to medal at the Olympics. It’s the bare minimum.”

Megan Jones and Celia Quansah: The rise of two of Britain’s brightest rugby stars

While they now share the rugby field together, Jones and Quansah had two very different journeys to the top of the game.

Jones, 26, was brought up in Cardiff and followed in her rugby-mad brother’s footsteps, starting to play at just age six. After grinding through the local rugby scene, which included turning out for an under-12 boys team, she went on to play at the 2017 World Cup and was called up as a reserve for GB’s Rio 2016 campaign.

In contrast, Quansah was raised in Twickenham and proved herself to be an elite-level athletics prospect, competing for Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow AC where she trained alongside Britain’s new high jump record holder Morgan Lake. She even went up against Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill at the British Championships.

But it was at Loughborough when Quansah, who had played rugby league at school level, really began to shine in her newly-adopted sport.

Just six months after taking up rugby, she was on trial with the England rugby sevens team where her explosive speed and power saw her progress to be part of the GB team that won the 2019 Rugby Europe Women’s Sevens Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Two years later the couple was together at home, waiting nervously to see whether they had been called up for the Olympic tournament at Tokyo 2020.

Quansah was the first to receive the email with the news she had made the team. "I wanted to be like 'oh my god' and I couldn't because Meg hadn't seen the squad yet," she told BBC Sport about the nervous minutes that passed before Jones received her call-up.

But eventually, both found out they were on their way to Tokyo, with the former even named co-captain of the squad.

Megan Jones and Celia Quansah: Finding acceptance in the rugby sevens community 

Jones and Quansah aren’t the first couple to play together at the Olympics. They spoke to the BBC about the “confidence” they took from seeing Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh win gold for Great Britain in hockey at Rio 2016. 

And in rugby, they have found an acceptance that they feel would not be possible in other sports where being gay is still stigmatised. 

“In athletics it’s not very normalised being gay and it’s very different coming into rugby,” Quansah told Rugby World in 2022. “And I wasn’t out when I first started playing rugby when I was 21. It wasn’t really until I came into rugby that I was like, ‘Oh, OK, maybe I am gay!’ But even so at that point, I didn’t know whether I was gay or whether this was a phase - it was weird, I’d never really thought about it when I was in athletics. 

“It hasn’t been an issue for me, but I know there’s so many people for who it has been.”

Quansah is, however, more than conscious of the stereotypical views people outside of her sport continue to hold about gay women in society. 

“People just see the word gay and they expect you to have a shaved head and be really bulky, and it’s just like, “What era do you live in?’” she said. 

And both Quansah and Jones, who post regularly on Instagram about their sporting journeys and life as a couple, are aware of the importance their openness has in breaking down cliches that still exist around the world today. 

"What we're about is being authentic and true to who we are,” Jones told the BBC. “You get heterosexual couples posting photos of each other on social media. All we're doing is sharing our life on Instagram. It was never to be like 'this is for the community' but naturally it becomes like that anyway.

"We're very proud and it helps that we're both vocal about it. Speaking about things normalises it - it's as simple as that."

Next stop Paris and the quest for the gold medal

Fourth place at Tokyo 2020 was above expectations for the GB Olympic team but still a devastating blow for a group of players who had come so close to picking up a medal. For Jones and Quansah the agony of defeat was tempered by having someone to turn to who had been through exactly the same heartache.

“The disappointment of losing that game, it was horrible but then having Meg there, we keep it professional but having your person there is so nice,” said Quansah of their 21-12 loss to Fiji in the bronze medal match in Tokyo. “It’s lovely to be able to share the good bits and have her there for the bits that are hard as well. She’s living and breathing it with me.”

Now two years later, they both have the chance to return to the Olympic stage and play their part in their country’s push to go one better and land on the Olympic podium.

For Jones, those plans are in full swing, as she continues to co-captain her country in the Rugby World Sevens Series where they currently sit seventh - starting with a fixture against Fiji, Britain’s conquerors in Tokyo, on 3 March in Vancouver.

However, for Quansah, the journey to Paris is on hold for now as she seeks to overcome a serious knee injury that has left her on the sidelines for the time being.

But despite the uncertainty of what will happen over the next year-and-a-half, both can be certain they will have each other’s total support as they follow their dreams in rugby and beyond.

“Whatever happens, we have each other and will be proud of each other,” Quansah told the Telegraph. “Our journey is unique.”