A new home for Sevens
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2020 was meant to be the year that Emma Uren finally had a story to rival that of her mother Lotta’s tales of working with Madonna and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Instead, she underwent major hamstring surgery, was made redundant, and ended up modelling her mum’s Swedish clogs more often than she pulled on a pair of rugby boots.
“I had those thoughts for sure and, I suspect a few of the other guys did as well, thinking ‘what am I hanging around for? The universe is telling me to move on to pastures new’. But no one’s really seen that as an option.”
“We’re in the same boat as the people in the entertainment industry, we can only do what we love to do and what we’ve trained so hard to do. So when they say, ‘you’ve just got to retrain’. Well, no. We still have goals and aspirations and you can’t just walk away from that.”
Before lockdown, Celia Quansah and Meg Jones were living their best rugby lives. Paid to be professional sevens players, the former heptathlete and 2017 Rugby World Cup finalist had the Olympics in their sights. One Zoom call from the RFU’s Conor O’Shea later, and it feels like it’s all over.
For world-champion coal carrier Phil Ounsley, seeing his daughter haul a bag of carrots around the kitchen was a sign she had a sporting future. He was right. Four years after first picking up a rugby ball, Jodie was offered an England contract and the former cat photographer had set her sights on the Tokyo Olympics.
It wasn’t that long ago that Ethan Waddleton was ripping it up in Dubai, making dream teams and living the best sevens life. Now, he’s in Ipswich, more than a few country miles from the first-class rugby life and dreaming of the day when he can get ‘beasted’ at Lensbury once again.
Taking a call from England Sevens head coach James Bailey while working through a severe hangover in Amsterdam kickstarted the best year of Beth Wilcock’s life. But when it all ended, she hit her lowest ebb. Stepping in to help her were a cast of four dogs, three brothers, two foster siblings, two parents, a parrot, a snake and a gecko.
When he tested positive for Covid-19, Ben Harris counted himself lucky he only suffered a loss of taste. It was the latest event in a rollercoaster year that had seen him switch England Sevens for the Premiership, and then the Championship. But while he is focused on helping Saracens back to the top, he still has one eye on Tokyo 2021.
Eyes streaming, face distorted, arms aching and head being forced downwards; the g-force pounds Heather Fisher as she hurtles at 80mph down the fastest and steepest bobsleigh track in the world. She’d learnt every turn, but her mind is blank. Like running through ‘windmills while in a tumble drier’, not even rugby is like this.