Rugby Sevens star Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is one of three Northlanders selected for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The opening ceremony is on Saturday morning (NZ time).
Rugby Sevens star Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is one of three Northlanders selected for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The opening ceremony is on Saturday morning (NZ time).
Four Northlanders have been selected for the Paris Olympics, but the quest for gold has been ended for two of them before the games officially start.
Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is part of the Women’s Sevens team while Brady Rush and Tapea Cook-Savage earned places in the Men’s Sevens team. As well, Shannon Cox will combine with Jackie Kiddle in the Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls.
The Olympics officially begin on Saturday morning NZ time with the opening ceremony that will be held along the River Seine that flows through the heart of the French capital. Track cyclist Aaron Gate and sailing athlete Jo Aleh are the Kiwi team’s flagbearers.
But the Sevens competition kicked off on Thursday (NZ time), and the men’s team was knocked out in the quarter-finals on Friday morning (NZ time) by South Africa. The team won silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and before this games had scored the joint-second most tries (42) and second-most points (269) of any team in Olympic history. Their 25 tries at Tokyo 2020 were the most of any team, and fell just one short of Fiji’s tournament record of 26 set in 2016. Scott Curry is New Zealand’s all-time leading Olympics try scorer.
The women’s Sevens team - with Woodman-Wickliffe one of the team’s stars and most recognisable players - are the defending Olympic champions and will be keen to defend their gold medal.
The Women’s Rugby Sevens at Paris 2024 begins on Monday and takes place over three days at Stade de France in Saint-Denis.
Pool A is made up of defending champions New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, and China. Pool B will feature Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, and South Africa. Hosts France, Brazil, Japan, and the USA complete Pool C.
Brady Rush, here in action for New Zealand All Blacks Sevens v South Africa, in Paris Olympics at Stade de France, this week, was one of three Northlanders taking part in the games. Photo / www.photosport.nz
Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is one of the most recognisable players in rugby, as the leading try scorer in the World Series.
Woodman has been recognised on the global stage with the 2015 World Rugby Women’s Sevens Player of the Year Award and in 2017 was named World Rugby Women’s Player of the Year. In 2020 she was named as the top women’s sevens player of the decade.
In XVs, Woodman-Wickliffe was part of the World Cup-winning Black Ferns in 2017 and 2022 and holds the record for most tries in a Farah Palmer Cup match, crossing for six tries against Taranaki for Northland in 2020. She was part of the team that won Gold at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Her father, Kawhena, and uncle, Fred, both played for the All Blacks in the 1980s. In 2022, she scored her 200th try on the World Sevens Series, a history-making feat.
All Blacks Sevens player, Kaitāia’s Tapea Cook-Savage, is one of three Northlanders selected for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Rugby Sevens - Men:
Northland’s Brady Rush is the second generation international sevens player, following in the footsteps of his father, former captain Eric Rush.
Rush has played NPC for Northland and in the 2020 Ignite7 he turned heads with his fast footwork and intuitive play and was offered a contract with the Sevens for 2021.
Rush was a key member of the squad that won the 2023 World Series.
Brought into the Sevens squad in 2022, Kaitāia’s Tapea Cook-Savage made his debut in the black jersey in Cape Town.
Impressing in the Bunnings NPC for Waikato, Cook-Savage is an electric player with clever footwork and an eye for the gap.
Cook-Savage has been selected for his first pinnacle event.
Whangārei's Shannon Cox
Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls
Shannon Cox, from Whangārei, will combine with Jackie Kiddle in the Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls. Paris will be her first Olympics after she made her international debut in 2023. She started rowing at Whangārei Girls High School in 2012.
Cox won her first National Premier title in 2022, the Women’s Single Sculls. It was her first Red Coat, the jacket awarded to national champions at the Premier level.
Cox plans to join the police, where she would like to become a dog handler. Both her parents are in the police force.
