Charlotte Caslick won’t still be playing rugby sevens at 37 at her home Olympics in Brisbane in 2032 but she will have huge sway on who does.
From Thursday, three days of sevens’ thrills at the Tokyo Olympics may well ignite the generation of girls who take the baton on to Paris (2024), Los Angeles (2028) and Brisbane.
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More than any coach, the dynamism of her play stirs the imagination of young girls to have their first crack like no other rugby sevens player.
She helped make rugby sevens cool at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She made pigtails as essential as a football to any new junior sevens team. She has the reach to 117,000 followers on Instagram who track her journey.
She has never locked away that Olympic gold medal.
It’s been touched, ogled at and worn by hundreds over the past five years.
“I’m pretty relaxed about where the gold medal goes. I’ve always thought it’s better to be out there being touched and tried on, rather than in a drawer,” Caslick reflected ahead of Tokyo.
“I’ve had a lot of support along the way. The best part is everyone enjoying it. I think I even include my little brother Jack, who took it out on the drink with him one night.”
The player pool for women’s sevens in Australia has already grown exponentially because of what Caslick, Emilee Cherry, Emma Tonegato, Sharni Williams, Shannon Parry, Vani Pelite and Co did so gloriously in Rio five years ago.
The benefits have arrived in time for Tokyo. Teen talent Maddison Levi, just 19, joined the sevens craze in 2017. She plays for the Gold Coast Suns in the AFLW as well. Her leaping to win re-starts and speed are huge additions if the Aussies are to upset hot favourites New Zealand in Tokyo.
Watching the Aussie girls train at Ballymore was inspirational for Maddison and her sister Teagan, who still has the pair of Aussie shorts given to her by Caslick that day.
“It makes me feel old but it’s also pretty surreal to have quite an impact on the next generation of girls playing rugby,” Caslick said.
“Someone like Maddi is adding a lot to the squad.
“2016...it kind of feels like a lifetime ago but yesterday at the same time.”
Caslick is only 26 but she now has a perspective you don’t have when at your first Olympics as a wide-eyed 21-year-old.
“Rio was a bit of a whirlwind. It’s nice to grow up but have girls like Sharni, Shannon, Vani and Emma still in the squad,” Caslick said.
“Emilee and Alicia (Quirk) are now mums with their first little girls which is so amazing. They have moved on to the next stages of life.”
Caslick is not getting all reflective.
She has a hard edge for competition and knows that beating Japan (11.30am, Thursday), China (6.30pm, Thursday) and the tough Americans (11.30am, Friday) in pool play in Tokyo is now all that matters.
“We have a good draw so we can build into playing the Americans,” Caslick said.
“Playing NZ in (eight) warm-ups before the Olympics was really good for us to refine some combinations and play at that high level again to prepare.”
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An Australia v NZ final on “Super Saturday” is the sevens’ gold medal match everyone wants to see. The more physical Canadians will be a very tough semi-final match-up first if that’s how it plays out.
The Kiwis have won just about everything since Rio so the Aussies are chasing.
Caslick, Pelite and the experienced girls will have to be at their absolute best but the leap to gold medal chances may hinge on young guns clicking like Levi and pacy Madison Ashby, who stung the Kiwis with two long-range tries in the Auckland warm-ups.
