Australian World Cup winning sevens captain Cheryl Soon will address the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Denmark on Friday to push for rugby’s return to the Games in 2016.
Soon, who led Australia to World Cup success in the inaugural women’s sevens championship in Dubai earlier this year, is part of the International Rugby Board (IRB) delegation which will present to the IOC in Copenhagen.
» Olympic rugby sevens – men’s schedule
» Olympic rugby sevens – women’s schedule
Alongside fellow delegates, former All Blacks superstar Jonah Lomu and IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset, Soon will urge the IOC assembly to accept an earlier recommendation that rugby be included on the Olympics roster in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
Soon was part of the successful IRB presentation to the IOC executive board in Lausanne earlier this year.
“We presented in June to 20 executive board members in their board room around a table,” Soon said.
“It was a quite intimate environment.
“Now we’re presenting to the 106 IOC members on stage, at a podium, with three cameras around the auditorium and three massive screens set up at the back of the stage.
“I’m really looking forward to it.”
The IOC executive board put forward rugby and golf in June as the two sports to be considered by the 106 IOC members.
Rugby has been played at four previous Olympics, the last of them in 1924.
Australia won the gold medal for rugby at the 1908 Games in London when the first Wallabies, on tour in Europe, beat English champions Cornwall in the final.
Sevens is the form of the game rugby has proposed for its Olympic return, with competitions for both men and women.
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