Just-retired rugby sevens player in Rio to cheer onformer teammates from the stands

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2016 (3591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the eve of her flight from Winnipeg to Rio, Mandy Marchak had her Olympic kit gathered and ready for the journey.

To these Games, she will take her event tickets, a bubbling anticipation, and a Team Canada rugby sevens jersey. If the Olympics had arrived just four months sooner, maybe the 31-year-old Winnipegger would have worn her jersey on the pitch at Deodoro Stadium, where the women’s tournament kicks off this morning.

Instead, after announcing her retirement in May, Marchak will wear the Maple Leaf in honour of the 12 athletes she consides sisters. After 11 years of giving everything she has to the national rugby union and sevens squads, she will now pour her heart out in the stands, as Team Canada’s talismanic No. 1 fan.

There was never any doubt she’d be there. “We went to Rio last year for a walkthrough, to see what the facilities looked like,” Marchak said Wednesday, hours before boarding her flight to Brazil. “I had a rough year last year. I told myself, ‘You know what, I love this team. These girls mean the world to me, and no matter what, I’m 100 per cent going.’”

Still, it was a heart-wrenching decision to step out of Olympic consideration. About two months after I spoke with Marchak back in March for a profile of Manitoba’s Olympic contenders, she was at a team training session when pain suddenly set in. A few days passed, but the nerve pain did not.

“I really was having a hard time being functional at the end of that session,” Marchak said. “I woke up the next day, I was in tears, I was in pain and having a hard time walking. I took it easy for a while and tried to come back. I tried to do a passing drill, took a step and pretty much collapsed.”

After sitting down with Team Canada coach John Tait, Marchak reached her decision. She had come so close to Rio, where rugby sevens will make its Olympic debut; but there is life after rugby, and that had to be considered, too. On May 19, she announced that she was retiring from the sport.

Accolades poured in on Twitter. Team Canada star and captain Jen Kish called her a “legend.” A CBC TV profile of the team captured the “sisterhood” in vivacious off-pitch moments, and Marchak figured prominently. She will not be on the roster of the team that will make history at this inaugural Olympic tournament, but she is not absent from its spirit.

“That closeness is very, very real,” Marchak said. “I’m very emotional as a person, and there will be a lot. I’ll be freaking out. I’ll be screaming, and so excited. It’s bittersweet, obviously, but I am going to be their biggest fan.”

They’ll need it. The women’s rugby sevens tournament will fly by in a whirlwind. Third-seeded Canada plays its first pool C match at 10:30 today against Japan, and will face Brazil at 3:30 p.m. They’ll wrap up pool play on Sunday, with the top two teams moving on to the quarter-finals; medal games are set for Monday.

What Marchak knows: This could be a defining moment for her sport in Canada. Four years ago in London, the national women’s soccer team — led by Christine Sinclair — battled to a historic bronze and, in the process, a nation fell in love. This time, though the sport is not as familiar to most Canadian viewers, rugby sevens could be poised to earn its breakout buzz. Rugby sevens is just as it is described — seven players a side competing on a full rugby pitch. Rugby union games feature 15 players a side.

On Tuesday, CBC and TSN announced they will provide broadcast coverage of Canada’s rugby sevens games live or nearly live. (TSN will cover both the women’s and men’s tournaments, though Canada did not qualify on the men’s side.) That part alone is a boon for the women’s team, which has rarely had such focused attention.

“It’s huge,” Marchak said. “For years, we couldn’t even get them to stream it online. It was like pulling teeth, getting people to watch women’s rugby. That’s huge for the sport. It just means it’s growing. It’s going to mean more funding, and more attention. There’s so many people who don’t believe that women are marketable.”

Well, this is a fine time to prove those naysayers wrong. What Canadians will see, if they tune in, is a rough ’n’ tumble sport made thrilling by a blistering athleticism.

They will also see the team’s sisterhood on full display, buoyed by the megawatt personalities of stars such as Kish and Ghislaine Landry, who is Canada’s scoring leader.

It’s a winning combination, and with Team Canada a definite medal contender, the next three days could turn its athletes into household names. On the other hand, anything can happen in rugby — that’s what makes it so exciting. “There could be a team in first, and they could come in eighth,” Marchak said. “It just depends on who shows up that day.”

To keep up with the team: @RugbyCanada on Twitter and Rugby Canada on Facebook.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca