{"id":1127,"date":"2015-11-15T12:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-15T12:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2015-11-19T12:10:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T12:10:29","slug":"fiji-women-australia-men-win-olympics-7s-berths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1127","title":{"rendered":"Fiji women, Australia men win Olympics 7s berths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1128\" src=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh-300x197.jpg\" alt=\"QAtAiFh\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" srcset=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh-300x197.jpg 300w, http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The Australian men&#8217;s and Fiji women&#8217;s teams claimed places in the rugby sevens tournament at next year&#8217;s Olympics by winning their finals at the Oceania regional qualifying tournament on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1447931937709_1323\">Both teams were unbeaten over two days of qualifying and clinched places at Rio de Janeiro with emphatic victories in their finals: Australia beat Tonga 50-0 and Fiji beat Samoa 55-0.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1447931937709_1324\">Tonga was a surprise finalist in the men&#8217;s competition, causing the tournament&#8217;s major upset when it beat co-favorite Samoa 41-5 in the semifinals.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1447931937709_1325\">Samoa went on to beat Papua New Guinea to crucially grab third place, as the second and third teams will get another chance at a final qualifying tournament in June.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1447931937709_1326\">The Fiji women were emphatic winners of their five-team competition. After beating Papua New Guinea 43-0 in their final pool match Sunday, the Fiji women \u2014 known as the Fijiana \u2014 beat the same opponents 58-0 in the semifinals.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1447931937709_1327\">&#8220;We worked really hard over the last eight weeks at home to get here and we are very happy,&#8221; Fijiana captain Anna Maria Roquica said. &#8220;We are so pleased to qualify for the Olympics but we know we have to improve our fitness and skills further. Importantly we have to keep believing in ourselves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Samoa finished second and the Cook Islands third to also claim places in next year&#8217;s final qualifying tournament.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1447931937709_1328\">Fiji and New Zealand had previously qualified for the men&#8217;s Olympic tournament after top-four finishes on the World Sevens circuit.<\/p>\n<p>Source: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian men&#8217;s and Fiji women&#8217;s teams claimed places in the rugby sevens tournament at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[5,9,3,33,1],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",650,427,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh-300x197.jpg",300,197,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",640,420,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",640,420,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",650,427,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",650,427,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",650,427,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",650,427,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/QAtAiFh.jpg",480,315,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=4\" rel=\"category\">Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}