With his mop of curls and all-action verve, Diego Ardao is Uruguay’s talisman. The 28-year-old has captained his team to promotion back to the HSBC SVNS Series after a testing year on the Challenger, and led them to their maiden appearance at an Olympic Games this month.
Ardao is a fascinating man. A qualified doctor, he will become an ear, nose and throat specialist when his rugby days are done. He reads classic novels and enjoys the works of Sartre and Kafka. He spent a year strumming his guitar and surfing on Bondi Beach, more time voyaging through Southeast Asia, and sees rugby sevens as another tool to travel the world and soak up rich experiences.
“Maybe by staying in your country, you keep a narrow vision,” Ardao reflects. “My gap year in Australia was a great time of understanding myself and the world around us; a year of pure fun.
“One of the great things I learned about myself was I wanted to do something big. I don’t want to stay in that routine of being on a gap year just working around. I had finished with the U20s team and when I got home, studied medicine and started with the sevens squad. There, I found a place that was great for me. It was like I arrived in a family.”
Uruguay secured core nation status for the first time in 2022, then had it torn from their grasp in London a year later. They blitzed the Challenger Series, including an invigorating home triumph in Montevideo, and then outgunned Chile in the Madrid qualifier to swiftly win back their place in the big time.
Ardao’s men toiled to keep themselves battle-ready. There was substantial jeopardy, too. The Challenger Series has only three events and a shaky performance in any of them can torpedo a promotion bid.
“It was the lack of competition,” he says. “We went from ten SVNS tournaments to three Challenger. We tried to merge with the Uruguayan Penarol franchise so we could have more competition. It was not sevens, so maybe we risked that time training specifically for sevens but we gained by being exposed to competition and different environments which can make a player better.
“Three stages to decide who was going to be at Madrid was too little. If one of those was not good, you were under more pressure and that can be reflected in your game.”
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The Montevideo leg calcified Uruguay’s status as the Challenger team to beat. Ardao, a beast all weekend, scored in the final victory over Hong Kong. With its national franchise, eye-catching performances at the Rugby World Cup and the continued growth of its sevens squad, Uruguay is a rugby nation on the rise; one of the greatest success stories in the fertile South American market. Estadio Charrua was cacophonous.
“We were expecting that date for a long time,” Ardao says. “Since we were promoted in 2022, our team started getting more exposure, our games were televised, we were at the centre of the stage. A lot of people started to know about the sport.
“As we got good results in our first season as a core team, that enthusiasm from the people also grew with our own enthusiasm.
“One way to boost all that exposure was having a tournament here in Montevideo. Not only because of having our people there, but also because it’s where we train every day, Estadio Charrua is like our second home. We knew it was going to be a great moment of emotion, but also a lot of pressure. It was key for us.”
When the stakes soar and the expectation levels rocket, Ardao thinks of his second career. He draws upon the lessons medicine has taught him, and how life as a doctor helps him deftly navigate the competing dynamics of a rugby team.
“I am the person that I am because of the career I have chosen. It’s very different from others, you have to connect with people from different social settings, you get to know different stories, different ways of living, and that gives you a sense of keeping your feet on the ground. You get a bigger perspective of life.
“It gave me the ability to be more open to every scenario and personality inside a team so you can understand everyone’s needs and be there to hear them because as a medic, you have to hear your patient every time.
“That was one of the skills I developed through the years, being patient and understanding what they are going through before trying to say or imply something. It’s very important in a team where everyone needs to be aligned, and if someone gets off the road you have to say ‘come back here’. It is not easy and if you try to force him, it’s maybe not the way, maybe you have to have a chat and find a way out.
“I can choose when to come back to work in general practice which is great because medicine will be available all my life. Sevens? No. Now is the moment to enjoy it and take advantage of this opportunity.”
And so, to Paris. Uruguay booked their ticket to France last June. With Argentina’s heavyweight Pumas already qualified via their SVNS campaign, they won the South American tournament on their own patch. Ardao, again, scored in the final and now at last, the Olympic torch flickers on the horizon.
Los Teros have been drawn in a brutal pool. Double Olympic champions Fiji – who covet this event above all else – the Antoine Dupont-infused French – crowned grand final winners in Madrid – and the USA – bursting with pedigree and experience – are their opponents. Ardao is undeterred. Uruguay yearn to shatter more barriers and break new ground for their country.
“In previous years we never saw the opportunity of playing at an Olympic Games,” the skipper says. “It was never in my mind. But last year, the chance was there and we had to take it – so we took it.
“We don’t want to just participate; we want to go there and be competitive with the best teams. The Olympics is the Mecca of sport and we have to try to be at our best to put our nation in the highest place we can.
“If we can be the best version of ourselves, we will be closer to that prize, to having a medal. We are heading to the Olympics in that mood.”
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