Rugby sevens at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament


The women's rugby sevens tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics was held in Brazil, hosted at the Deodoro Stadium, a temporary outdoor stadium constructed as part of the Deodoro Modern Pentathlon Park in Rio de Janeiro. The tournament was held from 6 August to 8 August 2016, starting with group matches before finishing with the medal ceremony on 8 August.
Australia beat New Zealand 24–17 in the final. Canada secured the bronze medal with a win over Great Britain.

Qualification

With Brazil being the hosts, their team automatically qualified despite their sevens team not regularly appearing in the top 6 on the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series. The 2014–15 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the initial stage of qualification, where the top 4 teams at the end of the series gaining qualification to the 2016 Olympic Games. Between June and September 2015, each of the six regional rugby unions held an Olympic qualification event, where one team from each region qualified, bring the total up to 11 team qualified. The final spot was determined by a repechage tournament held in Monaco, where the winner of that event became the final team to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games.
As a result of England finishing fourth in the 2014–15 Sevens World Series, Great Britain were awarded a spot in the Olympic games, despite the other nations failing to qualify in the top 4. This is because Great Britain compete as one union in the Olympics and as several in international rugby, which meant should one of either the England, Wales or Scotland teams qualify, then Great Britain would be awarded a spot in the Olympic Games. It was decided players based in Northern Ireland were not eligible to represent Great Britain in the rugby sevens tournament as these players represent the IRFU, and the union demanded that Northern Irish players, that have committed to play for the Irish rugby union, only play for Ireland despite being eligible under IOC rules to compete for Great Britain. The three remaining unions agreed in advance of the 2013–14 Sevens World Series that their highest-finishing teams in that season would represent all three unions in the first stage of qualification.

Qualified teams

Squads

Match officials

On 11 April 2016, World Rugby announced a panel of twelve match officials for the women's sevens. Two Brazilians were later added as assistant referees.
The draw for the tournament took place on 28 June 2016. The 12 teams were seeded based on their points they have accumulated over the past two seasons on the Women's Sevens Series circuit. The four teams that qualified directly from the 2014–15 Women's Sevens World Series were guaranteed a top four seeding, with their positioning determined by their combined score over the two seasons.
Seed 1Seed 2Seed 3

    • Pool stage

    Group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals. Third place teams drop to a third-placed teams table, where the top two third placed teams advance to the quarter-finals.

    Pool A

    ----
    ----

    Pool B

    ----
    ----

    Pool C

    ----
    ----

    Ranking of third-placed teams

    The top two of the third-placed teams advance to the knockout rounds.

    Knockout stage

    9–12th place playoff

    Semi-finals

    ----

    11th Place

    9th Place Final

    5–8th place playoff

    Semi-finals

    ----

    7th Place

    5th Place Final

    Medal playoff

    Quarter-finals

    ----
    ----
    ----

    Semi-finals

    ----

    Bronze Medal Match

    Gold Medal Match

    Final ranking

    Statistics

    Try scorers

    ;10 tries
    ;7 tries
    ;6 tries
    ;5 tries
    ;4 tries
    ;3 tries
    ;2 tries
    ;2 tries
    ;1 try
    ;1 try
    ;50 points
    ;41 points
    ;35 points
    ;34 points
    ;33 points
    ;30 points
    ;29 points
    ;28 points
    ;25 points
    ;24 points
    ;20 points
    ;19 points
    ;17 points
    ;15 points
    ;14 points
    ;13 points
    ;10 points
    ;8 points
    ;7 points
    ;5 points
    ;5 points
    ;4 points
    ;2 points