The dream of Olympic qualification remains alive for Mauritius and Botswana after they safely negotiated the Rugby Africa Sevens southern pre-qualifying men’s tournament in Rwanda over the weekend.
By finishing second and third in the six-team tournament in Kigali, Mauritius and Botswana take their place alongside northern qualifiers Morocco and Nigeria at the region’s Olympic qualifying tournament in Johannesburg on 14-15 November.
They will be joined in South Africa by Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Tunisia, Senegal and Zambia with the winner to book their place at Rio 2016 when sevens makes its Olympic Games debut.
The next best three teams will take their place in the global repechage tournament in 2016 from which the 12th and final qualifier will confirm their place in the Olympic Games.
South Africa have already qualified for Rio 2016 by virtue of finishing second in the 2014-15 HSBC Sevens World Series. Having done so, they stepped aside from the regional qualifier which enabled Zambia, as the ninth ranked team in the Africa Sevens event in 2014, to take their place.
Zambia actually ran out winners of the southern pre-qualifier after beating Mauritius 38-21 in the final, while Botswana beat the Democratic Republic of the Congo 24-17 to finish third. The final ranking match saw hosts Rwanda beat Burundi 19-0 to finish fifth.
Results
Pool A
Botswana 12-21 Zambia
Burundi 7-25 Zambia
Botswana 33-0 Burundi
Pool B
Mauritius 24-12 RDC
Rwanda 21-33 RDC
Mauritius 14-0 Rwanda
Cup semi-finals
Zambia 40-7 RDC
Mauritius 35-26 Botswana
Ranking matches
Burundi 0-19 Rwanda
RDC 17-24 Botswana
Zambia 38-21 Mauritius