A Kamloops resident will be joining Team Canada's Rugby Sevens team in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Games, for the team's first ever Olympic games — but he still hasn't been able to absorb the magnitude of his qualifying win on Sunday.
Despite being confident that they would win the two-day 2019 Rugby Americas North (RAN) Sevens tournament last weekend — with ambitions that they could complete the tournament without being scored on — 25-year-old Isaac Kaay said there was still an emotional post-game reaction from most of the guys on the field.
"It was quite emotional, especially for the guys who failed to get it the time before, they were extremely emotional after it was all done," Kaay explained.
"This is like four or five years in the making for most of the guys that were there. There were tears and pure relief and all that hard work finally coming to fruition."
Relief was a keyword for Kaay, after the Canadian team had previously failed to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio at the RAN Sevens tournament in 2015. They had won every game except their final match, losing to the US team.
"It was really relieving, to be honest, because we knew there wasn't much competition and all the pressure was kind of on us to not screw up," he said with a chuckle.
"Still waiting for it to sink in a little bit, but there will be a Canadian team going to Tokyo."
However, the Olympics hadn't been on Kaay's radar until last year when earning the berth had "become a reality."
Now that the team has made the cut, Kaay's not sure what the team's goals for the Olympics are. Kaay says one of their coaches, who had medal on his mind, was recently let go, but Kaay still believes the Canadian team is hoping to be a contender.
TOKYO BOUND🇯🇵@RugbyCanada Men's 7s have officially booked their ticket to #Tokyo2020
— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) July 7, 2019
More: https://t.co/oaqgv13c0e pic.twitter.com/VoDGzlhYwl
"Going into Tokyo we kind of wanted to become better and better and better throughout the year and peak in Tokyo instead of maybe playing our best rugby at the start of the year and falling off," Kaay said.
"Watching the women medal in Rio, I think [we] just know that it can be done and I think that is the goal. The goal is to go, show up and drive for a medal even though it is so competitive. Anything short of getting into medal contention would be extremely disappointing, but you never know."
For now Kaay is just focused on keeping healthy and staying in good condition in anticipation of the Olympics, just over a year away.
