Nate Ebner's road to Rio 2016 continues following selection to Mike Friday's USA squad for the HSBC Paris Sevens on 13-15 May.
The penultimate round of the 2015-16 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series will kick off just 85 days prior to rugby sevens' debut at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Friday has utilised 21 athletes on the series in the eight tournaments so far, with Ebner the most recent to make his debut in Singapore last month.
The New England Patriot and Super Bowl winner filled in on the wing for an injured Carlin Isles, who remains unavailable for selection to the touring squad, in Singapore and has made the cut for Paris alongside Thretton Palamo who returns to the side having missed the trip to Asia.
Also returning to the squad is Ben Pinkelman, who returned to Colorado State University in April to complete his school commitments. The 21-year-old made his debut this season and had been selected to each subsequent tournament prior to Cathay Pacific / HSBC Hong Kong Sevens.
"There may well be changes to the squad that comes to London to ensure all get what we need from the two weeks as we build towards Rio," said Friday.
"However, we have high expectations of ourselves and expect to be competing both weekends, and are not looking at this as a split tour of performance and development."
The USA are fifth in the overall standings and will again meet Canada and hosts France in Pool D following a win and loss, respectively, against the two in pool play at HSBC Singapore Sevens as well as Argentina.
"It's a tough pool in Paris but nothing that should fear us if we apply ourselves and prepare to the best of our ability," added Friday. "We have shown on a number of occasions if we apply ourselves that we are more than capable of topping this group. It is down to us as a squad to perform and, if we don't, then we will come unstuck."
USA squad: Nate Ebner, Ben Pinkelman, Danny Barrett, Garrett Bender, Zack Test, Thretton Palamo, Folau Niua, Maka Unufe, Nate Augspurger, Madison Hughes (captain), Perry Baker, Martin Iosefo.
