Argentina sevens coach Santiago Gómez Cora has stuck to his tried and tested formula when naming a squad to travel to Brazil for a 10-day training camp in the small fisherman’s town of Mangaratiba, south of Río de Janeiro.
 
The return of rugby to the Olympic Games in Rio is fast approaching and Gómez Cora will not have Santiago Cordero, Matías Moroni, currently involved with Los Pumas, and Juan Imhoff, playing with Racing 92 in the final stages of France’s Top 14. He has included Javier Rojas, who plays his club rugby in Albi, France.
 
The squad will travel on 19 June after two training days in Buenos Aires and return on 30 June. They will be joined in Brazil by Segundo Tuculet and Sebastián Cancelliere when they complete their involvement in the World Rugby Nations Cup in Bucharest.
 
 
“Santi, Tute and Juan will join us for training in Buenos Aires when we return from Brazil ahead of the naming of the Olympic squad on July 14,” said Gómez Cora.
 
“The camp in Portobello, Mangaratiba, will provide us a great opportunity to work under similar conditions to those we will encounter during the Games.” 
 
Fifteen players with plenty of HSBC World Rugby Sevens experience, have been named for the camp in Santiago Álvarez, Nicolás Bruzzone, Sebastián Cancelliere, Juan Pablo Estellés, Rodrigo Etchart, Bautista Ezcurra, Fernando Luna, Nicolás Menéndez, Axel Müller, Gastón Revol, Joaquín Riera, Javier Rojas, Franco Sábato, Germán Schulz and Segundo Tuculet.

ARGENTINA'S WOMEN SELECT SQUAD

Ahead of the women’s global repechage in Dublin on 25-26 June, where they will face the Cook Islands, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong in Pool D, the Argentina women’s team has undertaken a training camp at the National High Performance Centre in Buenos Aires.
 
Coaches Daniel Villén and Diego Manson worked with a squad of 18 players, but will not be experimenting when it comes to the last chance to win a place at Rio 2016. They have selected the same squad that finished second in the Sudamerica Rugby Championship and Olympic Games test event back in March and that later played in Hong Kong.
 
The team will meet in Buenos Aires for two further days of training ahead of their departure on Monday to Dublin.
 
Villén said: “Going to the repechage represents a big challenge for us, playing against teams of similar standard and others that are core teams in the world series. It will certainly help our team with their maturity process.
 
"Our expectations are big and we have prepared thoroughly. We will be playing against professional players when our girls have to work or study. But they make a huge effort for the love of the game to try and be as close as they can to the better teams.”
 
Argentina squad for repechage: Mayra Aguilar, Leticia Alcaraz, Noelia Billerbeck, María Eugenia Botelli, Rita Cazorla, Magalí Fazzi, Isabel Fontanarrosa, Mayra Genghini, Sofía González, Valeria Montero, Josefina Padellaro and María Paula Pedrozo.
 
Non-travelling reserves: Yamila Otero, Carolina Soto, Luciana Travesi.