The Cayman Islands National Sevens Programme has grown beyond measure in recent years from the days of the Deloitte Cayman Sevens in the early 2000s and with the acceptance of the sport into the 2016 and 2020 Olympic games, rugby sevens has taken its place among the world’s most exciting and viewed Olympic sports.
That’s why the rugby management at the club in South Sound is extremely excited that they will be hosting a major sevens tournament here next year.
The national Cayman Sevens Team now travels extensively competing in world class tournaments in Canada, the Caribbean and the USA regularly. In recent years the level of play of the team has reached new highs internationally and the world class management team that has been assembled to prepare and lead the team in 2012 and 2013 boasts world leaders in their fields.
The Cayman Rugby Union has just won the right to host the 2013 North American and Caribbean Rugby Association championships on November 16 and 17 with teams from all over the Caribbean and Mexico participating.
The winners will also go on to play in the World Sevens Series Hong Kong leg, the Commonwealth games and CACSO games in 2014 so it is a massive tournament for Cayman on home soil.
In conjunction with the NACRA tournament, the Cayman Rugby Union believes it is time to host its own annual international tournament.
That is on 11 November 2013 where local talent can be highlighted right alongside the tourism opportunities to the rugby sevens world and most importantly the target destinations of the USA, Canada, Europe and South America.
Of course, for 2013 the international tournament will be great preparation for the national sevens team but looking further down the road the objective is to become the world’s premier sevens tournament exposing rugby and the Cayman Islands worldwide through global television coverage through Pro-Active Television the International Rugby Board’s choice of television coverage.
The Cayman Rugby International Sevens will attract the top players from all of Cayman’s target tourism destinations by offering US$50,000 in prize money to be spread over just eight competing teams in one day of play.
The tournament will be filmed by Pro Active television, the official television company of the International Rugby Board, who will create and circulate globally an extended highlights package of the tournament. The highlights package will contain rugby from the tournament as well as highlight Cayman as a tourism destination and is expected to be circulated to many international TV stations.
Teams will be invited to attend at their own cost to participate for a share in the prize money driving them to field the best quality players available. This in turn will allow the sport to grow even further locally with the opportunity for local players to play against these players and teams but also by way of marketing the sport to schools and the youth of the Cayman Islands.
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