There is good news for Guyana and the Region’s teen ruggers.
According to a release, Rugby America’s North (RAN) and World Rugby have taken the decision to assist Caribbean teams with 50% of their airfare to participate in a qualifying Sevens tournament in April next year in Las Vegas, USA for a place in the finals of the Youth Olympic Games in Argentina seven months later.
The Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) is therefore inviting those players who were born during the period of January 2000 to December 2001 to register with the union with an aim of being selected on the national team.
With the age group being 17-18 years of age, the union is hoping to attract more students to the exciting sport and moreso encourage them to engage rugby which has been an option in the Physical Education and Sport syllabus (Effective for examinations from May, June 2014). Guyana’s ‘Green Machine’ team has been a dominant force in the Sevens version of the sport with most or all of its players coming from the U-19 school programmes.
Its U19 team in March this year defeated a Mixed Team 21-19 in French Guiana.
Since the debut of Rugby Sevens at the Olympics in Rio last year, greater emphasis has been placed on marketing the Seven-a-side version as an Olympic sport with the International Olympic Committee’s decision to retain all 28 sports that featured at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.