In his fourth column, South Africa's World Series winning Sevens coach gives his reaction to the IOC vote and looks ahead to the first two events of the season.
Friday was just magic. To us it felt like a bit of a formality, because we were so confident in Sevens as a sport, and I must admit that even before the announcement we had a toast to Sevens! But when the result was read out we were all blown away, totally blown away.
That moment was what we'd all been waiting for and I want to thank the IRB and everyone who worked on the bid. From the Chairman, Bernard Lapasset, to everyone in the global rugby community who pushed for Sevens to be at the Olympics, it's such a momentous occasion. I don't think we've yet come fully to grips with what lies ahead and what's coming our way.
In a sense, maybe we're not really prepared yet for the 2016 Olympics but it's something that we're all looking forward to and we can all now say that we and our sport will be part of the biggest sporting event in the world.
What we have started in South Africa, our full-time professional Sevens programme, even seems like an Olympic programme.
From a high performance perspective, it's something that we had to drive from the top down, but now with the Olympics we will have to start also driving the programme from the bottom up.
Talent spotting
We've already begun identifying our best Under 16 and Under 18 players at this stage and now we have to see how we can best work those players into our prospective programmes. Also we've started to look at how we can filter it down to the provinces, the clubs and the schools.
2016 doesn't seem too far away - it isn't that far away - but in seven years time a young 19 year old with sublime talent and speed might play for us at the Olympics, and today he or she is only 13. We need to find them.
Of course, I'm not counting any players out of the reckoning, even for now, however big and famous they are. If they want to play Sevens, commit to Sevens, we will look at them.
Having the pools and fixtures already set for the first two events of the new season has also helped to hammer home the excitement of the Olympic decision, because it's made it feel even more real.
For the first time, we're going to be defending the World Series and all of that starts in Dubai, where we're also the reigning champions. Every draw is tough, but to play Wales in the same stadium where they won the Rugby World Cup Sevens in March is going to be intense because they will be out to prove something.
We also have to play Australia, who improved massively last season, and the Arabian Gulf will have lots of home support.
George Pool: Out of Africa
Our pool a week later at our home event in George is even more interesting because three of the four African nations are in our pool and that's going to be tough.
We played Zimbabwe recently in the final of the Trustco Namibia Sevens and beat them, so they are going to come to George much better prepared. They beat Argentina in the semis in Windhoek, they are going to have learnt some lessons so they will be difficult.
Kenya - well we all know how they play Sevens now! They have incredible athletes, they know how to play Sevens, they just never stop. And then France are there too, who are so unpredictable. Even on the cross-over on day two in the quarter finals, it could either be Fiji, Australia, Portugal or Russia - there are simply no easy teams there. You say it to people but until they see the games for themselves they don't really believe you, but especially now with the Olympic decision, all of these countries are going to get much more help and the likes of Russia could now really start to challenge.
We slipped up in George for a number of years but we finally won last year and we've learnt our lessons. I think we know more now how to deal with the pressure.
It's also the people of George who make it so special for us, the way they came out last year and supported the team. I'm sure they will do the same this year and make it a very special occasion for everyone involved.
