Rugby sevens at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament

2016 Men's Olympic Rugby Sevens Tournament

Aerial view of the Deodoro Stadium, where the Men's Rugby Sevens tournament took place.
Tournament details
Host nation	Brazil
Venue	Deodoro Stadium
Date	9–11 August 2016
No. of nations	12
Final positions
Champions	Fiji
Runner-up	Great Britain
Third place	South Africa
Fourth place	Japan
Tournament statistics
Matches played	34
Tries scored	175 (5.15 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Cecil Afrika (47 points)
Most tries	Carlin Isles (6 tries)
2020 →

The men's rugby sevens tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics was held in Brazil. It was hosted at the Deodoro Stadium, a temporary outdoor stadium constructed as part of the Deodoro Modern Pentathlon Park in Rio de Janeiro. The tournament was held from 9 August to 11 August 2016, starting with group matches before finishing with the medal ceremony on 11 August. The 2016 Games marked the first time that rugby sevens has played at the Olympics, and the first time since 1924 that any form of rugby has played at the Olympics.

The gold medal for Fiji represented the first ever Olympic medal earned by Fiji at any Olympics. Great Britain won silver and South Africa defeated Japan to win the bronze medal.

With Brazil being the hosts, their team automatically qualified despite their sevens team not regularly appearing in the World Rugby Sevens Series. The 2014–15 Sevens World Series was the initial stage of qualification, with the top 4 teams at the end of the series gaining qualification to the 2016 Olympic Games. Between June and September 2015, each of the six regional rugby unions held an Olympic qualification event, where one team from each region qualified, bring the total up to 11 teams qualified. The final spot was determined by a repechage tournament held in Monaco, where the winner of that event became the final team to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games.

As a result of England finishing fourth in the 2014–15 Sevens World Series, Great Britain were awarded a spot in the Olympic Games, despite the other nations failing to qualify in the top 4. This is because Great Britain compete as one union in the Olympics and as several in international rugby (Rugby Football Union for England, Welsh Rugby Union, Scottish Rugby Union and the combined Irish Rugby Football Union for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland), which meant should one of either the England, Wales or Scotland teams qualify, then Great Britain would be awarded a spot in the Olympic Games. It was decided players based in Northern Ireland were not eligible to represent Great Britain in the rugby sevens tournament as these players represent the IRFU, and the union demanded that Northern Irish players that have committed to play for the Irish rugby union, only play for Ireland despite being eligible under IOC rules to compete for Great Britain. The three remaining unions agreed in advance of the 2013–14 Sevens World Series that their highest-finishing teams in that season would represent all three unions in the first stage of qualification.