As some of you may have noticed, there is an important sporting event going in Brazil on at the moment. Yes, it is an international rugby sevens tournament. There may be some other sports going on too, but we don’t care about them, do we?

Anyway, the ladies’ tournament has been happening over the past few days. Most of the usual suspects have got through the semi-finals, but I want to focus on the USA team.

The Eagles (USA uses the same team name for all genders) were unlucky to be drawn in a pool with Australia and Fiji. Bearing in mind that Fiji are past world champions and one of the favorites for the men’s title, that’s a tough group. Nevertheless, the Eagles managed to hold Australia to a 12-12 draw, which earned them a place in the quarter finals as one of the best 3rd place teams. There they faced New Zealand, and only lost 5-0. The Kiwis had destroyed all of their previous opponents (including France), so that was a really great performance by the Americans.

Kudos also to Canada who beat Fiji in their quarter-final and go forward to a semi-final against Australia. Britain are in the other semi-final, but I expect an Australia-New Zealand final.

The men’s tournament begins tomorrow, and the US team has drawn Fiji, Argentina and Brazil in their group. Given their performances on the sevens circuit of late, they should go through to the quarter-finals from that group.