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Lisa Thomson: Scotland's sole sevens player at Paris 2024
By Gary Heatly
A few months ago Lisa Thomson described the unveiling of a statue of her as “surreal” – and she uses the same word to describe the emotion she felt when she heard she was going to a second Olympic Games with Great Britain.
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Still just 26, the proud Scot from the Borders town of Hawick has packed a lot into her career to date and is always pretty down to earth and coy about her own achievements.
However, given that she is the sole Scottish player who will be running out at the showpiece women’s sevens event in Paris between Sunday and Tuesday, others north of the border are more comfortable about singing her praises.
She was just 18 when she made her Scotland XVs debut against England and, since then, has gone on to earn 60 caps which has included captaining the side at one stage, playing at a Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and helping them lift the inaugural WXV 2 trophy.
Sevens-wise, Thomson first represented Scotland in 2016 and has been part of the GB Sevens set-up since it came into being in 2022. Before that, she made it to Tokyo 2020 – played in 2021 – and played for Scotland at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. All of that saw her become the first female to be inducted into the famous Melrose Sevens Hall of Fame.
She also had a stint playing club rugby in France thrown in there for good measure.
As a result, it was perhaps no surprise that back in March, when Scottish Gas teamed up with Scottish Rugby to celebrate the tremendous growth of women’s rugby by casting three trailblazers into sustainable statues on the eve of the Guinness Women’s Six Nations, that she was one of the three players chosen.
For a couple of days the statues of herself, Scotland’s record cap holder Donna Kennedy and young gun Francesca McGhie took pride of place in Castle Street in the centre of the capital before moving to Hive Stadium and the Murrayfield complex.
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“It was surreal seeing myself as a statue and it feels surreal that I am now at my second Olympics,” Thomson said.
“I guess my rugby career has been so busy really since it started that I haven’t always taken time to step back and look at what I have achieved. My mindset has always been to focus on the next thing and then the next thing and that pattern just seems to always continue.
“During the Six Nations earlier this year I was playing XVs and then going back to sevens so that block was really challenging and I just had to get my head down and give my best for Scotland and GB.
“We then played a Rugby Europe event with GB in Croatia in June and it was the Monday after that that we got a text message to tell us whether we had made the Olympic squad or not.
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“It was great to hear that I was in because I always wanted another taste of it after Tokyo and ever since joining the GB Sevens programme in late 2022 this has been my goal.
“After that message came I managed to step back from things a bit and think about all the things that have happened over the years and I do feel proud of myself.
“You never see yourself as a trailblazer – I am just a normal girl from the Borders – but if things like the statue and me getting selected for another Olympics can inspire young girls and boys to follow their own dreams in rugby or whatever sport it may be then I will be happy.”
Although she is the only Scottish player in the Great Britain squad in Paris, there are plenty of fellow Scots around to keep her company.
Head coach Ciaran Beattie is also from the Borders – “When we speak to each other the other players think it’s in code, they can’t understand us sometimes!” – while assistant coach Scott Riddell and team manager Sean Lamont are also proud Scots.
And, although she was born in England and grew up in New Zealand, Thomson’s teammate Isla Norman-Bell has links to her hometown of Hawick too.
Norman-Bell explained: “My poppa and granny Mo are both from Hawick and grew up there.
“When I was talking to Lisa a while back we realised that our grannies actually knew each other growing up so that was cool.”
Given that Tokyo three years ago was played out behind closed doors because of the pandemic, Thomson admits she cannot wait to play in front of crowds this time when Great Britain kick off their Pool B campaign versus Ireland on Sunday.
“Tokyo was a brilliant experience, but a strange one because no one was there to see it and you had to try and create your own atmosphere as a squad,” she explained.
“It was also strange for me because I started off as the reserve player and in the lead-up to it, I wasn’t sure if I was going to play, but the rules changed and I did get on the pitch.
“This time around, I think it dawned on me when we were on the Eurostar over to our pre-Olympic camp last week that this was going to be a whole different experience from start to finish.
“Even then the buzz as we left and people wishing us good luck was great and every day since then that had just been cranking up and up.
“We will get a feel for what the atmosphere is going to be like when the men’s tournament gets going from Wednesday, but nothing is going to beat running out for that first match in a few days’ time.
“I’ll have my mum Susan, dad Allan, brother Matthew and granny Ann there cheering me on which will be brilliant.
“I will try and look out for them, it might be tricky, but I may be able to hear my mum supporting us!
“Seriously though, once we get onto the pitch we have to really focus because every tie is going to be so crucial, in sevens you can’t afford to take your eye off things for a second.
“I think our squad has come together well ahead of the event. We are not just doing this for us, but for all the other squad members who just missed out on selection – I am really proud to play alongside the English and Welsh girls in a GB strip.”
