New Zealand’s rugby golden dreams may have been delayed by COVID, but they’ve now been realized

New Zealand won gold in women’s rugby sevens at the Summer Olympics, winning all six of their matches in Tokyo and fulfilling what seemed a year ago to be an inevitable march to gold.

New Zealand had been absolutely dominant in the 2020 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, winning gold in the last four events. It looked like they were cruising to Olympic gold last summer.

Then COVID hit, the series got canceled and the Tokyo Olympic Games followed.

The 2021 series never took place, but the Kiwis picked up right where they left off, dominating the field.

The team has at least four publicly out LGBTQ players that we know of: Kelly Brazier, Gayle Broughton, Ruby Tui, Portia Woodman. That’s tied with Canada for the most in rugby sevens.

Broughton scored a try goal during the gold-medal match.

Tui became a bit of a sensation after she gave this exuberant interview to the BCC, half in Samoan, half in English:

Huge congratulations to the New Zealand crew, and thanks for bringing another gold medal to Team LGBTQ!