Venezuela women's sevens coach Marisell Méndez is taking a balanced view when it comes to her country’s involvement at the repechage tournament in Dublin later this month that will determine the 12th and final qualifier for Rio 2016.

Venezuela qualified for the repechage after finishing third in Sudamérica Rugby’s Olympic qualifying tournament behind winners Colombia, who took the regional spot for Rio 2016, and runner-up Argentina, who will join the Orchids in Dublin.

Drawn alongside one of the pre-tournament favourites Spain, who finished ninth in the 2015-16 HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series, Mexico and Tunisia, Méndez knows Venezuela have it all to do to qualify for the knockout stages from their pool.

Experienced campaigners such as Ingrid Griffin (pictured above), in the team since 2004, and Claudia Contreras, in her fourth season as captain, provide the backbone to an otherwise youthful-looking squad that is intent on playing an open and exciting brand of rugby.

HUGE CHALLENGE

“Of course our dream, our hope and what we’ve been training for so long for is to qualify to Rio 2016,” said Méndez, a former captain of the team who stepped up to become coach in late 2012.

“Dublin will be a huge challenge, but our goal is to win two games on the opening day. We beat Mexico by 20 points the last time we played them, but that was two years ago, and we only know that Tunisia was third in Africa. We will aim for victories in those two. Spain is a core team in the HSBC Women’s Series and on paper a candidate to win in Dublin so we expect that one to be very tough.

“If can make it out of our pool, we will jump from being ranked in and around 30th in the world to the top 20.”

Rugby in Venezuela is totally dwarfed by baseball, the national sport, and football and competes with other sports for support and profile. 

Despite all of this, the Ministry of Sport has embraced rugby after the approval of development and high performance plans for women’s sevens.

“Thanks to the plan, we have been receiving support both in terms of structure and funding,” explained Méndez.

“We have an enlarged squad of 21 players of which only seven are from Caracas so the rest are based in the Ministry’s high performance units where they only have to worry about their preparation.” 

HOOKED

There are currently 500 female players in 12 women’s clubs in all of Venezuela and, common to the rest of the region, the focus is mostly on sevens. Méndez comes from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the second oldest club in the country, where she picked up the bug for rugby.

 “15 July, 1994. That was the first day I attended my first rugby practice,” she said. Aged 16 and starting university, where she would earn her degree in mechanical engineering, she was in search of an extra-curricular activity outside of her studies. “Rugby practice was at midday and I was too young to be allowed to train at night so I thought I’d give it a go. I remember we did some drills and when I made my first tackle I was hooked.”

Twenty-two years later, she is dreaming of taking her team to Rio and joining the 68 other Venezuelan athletes already qualified for the Olympic Games.

 “Our dream is to qualify for the Games but my ultimate goal is to continue helping Venezuelan women’s rugby. Our plan goes way beyond Rio 2016 and we continue growing which is always positive.”

The Orchids travel to the Rome Sevens this week and will then stay on in Europe as they finalise preparations for Dublin.