NAIROBI, Kenya, June 19 – National women’s rugby 7s player Grace Adhiambo is salivating at the prospect of featuring at the Olympics for the third time.
Adhiambo says the prize of playing in the ‘city of love’ is inducement enough for them to work hard at this weekend’s Repechage in Monaco.
“Personally, it is a great honour and achievement to qualify for the Paris Olympics. I know what it means to be an Olympian and to go to Paris of which I want my teammates to feel like that. We have new players…they are also definitely dreaming of becoming Olympians. It is a dream to go to Paris…I mean, it is the land of love,” Adhiambo said.
The Lionesses will be in a do-or-die battle at the Stade Louis II in Monaco where they face Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Argentina in a tantalising Pool A.
Coach Dennis ‘Ironman’ Mwanja’s charges would have preferred to have wrapped up their qualification at last year’s qualifiers in Tunis, Tunisia but for a 12-7 loss to South Africa in the final.
With only one team earning a slot to the quadrennial games, the pressure is well and truly on for the ladies.
Nonetheless, the Lionesses they are, Adhiambo says they are taking it all in their stride.
“The pressure is there yes…but I am not taking it negatively because if I do, I’ll be nervous. I won’t be able to kick or pass and I’ll think a lot of things yet in that time, I only need to think about my teammates and what I need to do right. The pressure, I am just taking it right and positively as a team,” she said.
Adhiambo was not part of the team that competed at the ultimate leg of the World Challenger Series in Krakow, Poland from which the Lionesses narrowly missed out on the World Rugby Sevens Series promotion playoffs in Madrid.
Lionesses lost 15-21 to the hosts in the semi-finals to finish fifth with 38 points – 22 less than leaders China.
In Monaco, they will be comforted by the fact that they will be meeting teams that they have faced – and overcome – in the Challenger Series, such as Argentina who they trounced 22-5 in the quarterfinals of the Krakow leg.
