Alright folks, let’s dive into this rugby history rabbit hole I went down today. Been meaning to write about Olympic rugby for ages, especially with Paris coming up. Thought it’d be straightforward. Man, was I wrong.
Started simple. I grabbed my laptop, cracked open Wikipedia like anyone would. Typed in “Rugby at the Olympics.” Easy. Page loads, I scan it. Boom. First thing I see: Rugby Union was actually IN the Olympics way back when. Like, proper medal sport. Paris 1900! Had no idea it was that old. Figured it was maybe a one-off demo sport recently. Nope.
Kept reading. St. Louis 1904 came next. London 1908. Okay, cool, a pattern. Then… nothing after 1924? Hit the brakes. Why’d they kick it out? That didn’t make sense. Now I’m hooked. This needed digging. Switched gears. Went deep into the Olympic archives online – official IOC stuff, old news snippets. Spent like an hour just chasing why it vanished.
Turns out? The story’s messy. Seems like the big rugby powers – England, France, etc. – just kinda… lost interest in pushing for the Olympics? Maybe saw it as amateur hour compared to their own tours. Plus, the whole Olympics itself was wobbling for a bit back then. Rugby got squeezed out. The last men’s gold medal match in 1924 was apparently wild – USA vs France, with crowd trouble! Seriously? After that, poof. Gone for nearly a century. Just weird.
So yeah, rugby basically disappeared from the Summer Games menu. For DECADES. My brain struggled with that. How do you just remove a whole sport?
Then came Rugby Sevens. This is where I got excited. See, I knew it came back in Rio 2016. Awesome. Fiji winning that first gold? Pure emotion. But how did it get back? More digging. Found out it wasn’t some overnight decision. The Sevens format, shorter, faster, packed into a few days – that was the key. Fit the modern Olympics vibe perfectly. The IOC loved that. Made sense. Less players, more countries could compete, explosive games. Took years of lobbying, but they finally got the nod for Rio.
Stumbled onto this list too – all the tournaments:
- 1900 (Paris): Only three teams! France, Germany (won silver!), and some random club team representing GB who won gold. Bizarre.
- 1904 (St. Louis): Basically a USA club tournament. Two teams? Messy records.
- 1908 (London): Australia smashes everyone (even GB!). Gold medalists.
- 1920 (Antwerp): USA shows up late and unexpectedly beats France! Shock result.
- 1924 (Paris): USA beats hosts France again in chaotic final. Last men’s XVs gold.
- 2016 (Rio): Rugby returns as Sevens! Fiji’s men and Australia’s women win historic golds.
- 2020 (Tokyo): Fiji defends gold (epic!), New Zealand women dominate.
Crazy journey, right? From club teams winning golds a century ago, to vanishing, to coming back totally reinvented as a global Sevens party. I honestly just expected a list of recent winners. Instead, got a saga full of weird dropouts, surprise winners like the USA clinching gold twice, and a comeback story for the ages. Really changes how you see that shiny Sevens gold medal now. Took way longer to piece this together than planned, but hey, that’s the fun of it. Always something new to learn!
