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The two little-known details behind USA Sevens’ historic Olympic medal
By Finn Morton
Alex ‘Spiff’ Sedrick was the hero for Team USA as they claimed a historic Olympic medal for the first time in women’s rugby sevens. With Ilona Maher leading the way, that team captured the hearts and imaginations of new rugby fans throughout that memorable run to bronze in Paris.
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But for all of the fame, attention and celebration that this medal-winning team achieved, there are some key details about their run to history that the world doesn’t seem to know about. With Sedrick delivering the medal-winning brilliance, it’s only right that she unveiled the truth.
The USA had been a bit hot and cold on the HSBC SVNS Series before the Paris Games. They only managed two podium finishes across eight tournaments, but with the Olympics approaching, the chance to make history on the biggest sporting stage of all awaited.
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Australia and New Zealand were considered clear favourites to challenge for gold, but the Americans didn’t rule themselves out of a medal. Canada and France still appeared to be the more likely candidates to at least challenge for bronze behind the Aussies and Kiwis.
But sport rarely plays out as expected.
The Americans beat Japan and Brazil in pool play before suffering a one-sided 31-14 loss to Olympic hosts France. They’d still done enough to book their spot in the quarters, where they faced a Great Britain side that included the likes of Ellie Kildunne and Isla Norman-Bell.
Onto the semis they went, but the USA suffered a 12-point loss to eventual gold medallists New Zealand. They’d still have a chance at bronze, but SVNS Series champions Australia were waiting for them after a stunning loss to Canada at Stade de France.
It was a tense contest but Australia took the lead late in the piece after some magic from Levi sisters Teagan and Maddison. But with time almost up, Sedrick got the ball practically her own try line before running 95 meters to the house to level the score at 12-all.
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The secret? A jersey that was too small.
“We knew going into it that it’s possible so when I got the ball I honestly thought I was going to get tackled right there. Watching it back, I don’t know why I called for the ball. There’s three defenders in front of me and I only had one other attacker on the other side of the ruck,” Sedrick recently told RugbyPass.
“I don’t even know why I called the ball, I shouldn’t have done that but whatever it worked out. But when I caught the ball I was like, ‘Okay, just don’t turn it over, don’t lose possession’ because they’re such a good recycling team.
“I was like, ‘Keep possession, just get downfield as far I can. Once I’m not moving anymore, just place it back, don’t get a penalty, don’t get a holding on penalty’ is all I’m thinking.
“Then I get past the first one and I was like, ‘Oh okay, it’s fine, just next job.’ Then I feel the Australian player grab me up high and they’ve done this to us before where they pull us away from our support so they can get that separation for another one of their players to push the ball. It’s very common that we see it on the Series.
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“I’m just pulling my chest up and my jersey was so tight, I put in the wrong size when we were writing down our sizes so it was a size too small, and I just don’t think she got a grip of it and I was just trying to stay on my feet.
“As I’m running I was like, ‘Oh wow, that was really surprising but yay.’ I knew they were going to be chasing back, Maddi Levi is one of the best defenders in the game.”
With the scores locked at 12-all, Sammy Sullivan and other American players tried to compose themselves as Sedrick prepared for the conversion. The attempt was five metres out in front, so it seemed like a routine attempt, and that’s what Sedrick’s teammates seemed to think as well.
Australian players were already in tears as they stood on the cusp of their second shocking upset of the day, but little did the rugby world know that this attempt was far from a gimmie. While ‘Spiff’ was the one taking the attempt, the 26-year-old isn’t a goal-kicker.
With a sold-out crowd watching on at the modern-day Parisian Colosseum that is Stade de France, and the expectation that the conversion should go over, Sedrick couldn’t help but think, “I don’t take kicks. I don’t even practice them.”
“It’s funny that you call it routine because I don’t kick. I don’t practice kicking. We have kicking sessions where our kickers will go and they’ll take reps and stuff. I don’t do any of that. I was actually told not to focus on that because I wanted to develop other areas of my game.
“Of course, it’s right down the middle, it’s a huge goalpost, you’d think, ‘There’s so much space to make it, it’ll be fine.’ But just having that nervousness of being the one…
“Before the game, my assistant coach came up to me and he was like, ‘The way that the subs shake out, you might be the one that has to take the restart.’ Maybe they did consider that it would be a conversion but I was practising restarts in my warm-up.
“… I shanked both of them (in warmup) super hard, just terrible, awful. I saw my coach and he had seen it and he just looked away.
“After I scored I was like, ‘Okay, just put it in with your foot, it’ll be fine’ and it was, surprisingly, like shockingly it went in.”
But the attempt went over.
The USA celebrated Olympic bronze.
Businesswoman Michele Kang donated $4 million towards the USA Women’s Eagles Sevens program after that success, and at the time of writing Ilona Maher is still making headlines on Dancing With the Stars in America and was named in the Time100 Next list.
USA women’s rugby sevens has changed forever, and a lot of that comes down to a passage of brilliance from a superstar athlete who accidentally ordered the wrong jersey and stepped up to win the bronze match 14-12 despite not even practising the skill that was required to do so.
