France Sevens: Ireland women make history by reaching Olympic Games for first time

Ireland women have never qualified for the Olympics before

Ireland women's sevens have made history by qualifying for the Olympic Games for the first time.

The Irish defeated Fiji 10-5 at the France Sevens in Toulouse on Sunday morning to secure their place at the 2024 Paris Games.

Ireland join Australia, New Zealand, USA and hosts France in booking their spot at the Games.

The Olympic Rugby Sevens competition will run from 24-30 July 2024 at the Stade de France.

Ireland had to remain ahead of Fiji and Great Britain in the World Sevens standings by the conclusion of this weekend's tournament to qualify and the win over the Fijians means they do that by staying in fifth place.

"It's been a journey for us and I'm just so grateful to have a team like that around us, players, families," Ireland captain Lucy Mulhall said.

"It has been an amazing year and our goal is just to grow sevens in Ireland. To see young kids here this weekend wearing an Ireland sevens jersey, it means so much.

"We do it for our families. Rugby has become a family and then all of our families have joined us, so they have all got to know each other and have a great weekend. I am just so glad we could make them happy again."

Ireland first embarked on their quest for Olympic qualification in 2015 and came close to reaching the Rio and Tokyo Games.

Temple Jones' side produced strong performances in Dubai, Cape Town, Hamilton and Sydney earlier in the season to put themselves in a good position heading into the final weekend in Toulouse.

They enjoyed pool wins over the hosts and Brazil to ensure a passage through to the quarter-finals in the south of France.

Australia proved too strong in the last eight but Ireland recovered to win their head-to-head against Fiji.