Oh, what do you need?
Oh, you'll need a few things.
Saturday night's excitement showed that to beat Fiji in the Olympics, it was important to have an advantage in a stadium where some 69,000 people, including President Emmanuel Macron, were singing the French national anthem, while the group of Fijian fans next door was so small that they couldn't be heard upstairs.
To stop Fiji from winning two gold medals would be helped by the presence of a desperate star like Antoine Dupont, who bounced back from a disastrous defeat at the 2023 15-a-side World Cup in France to switch to sevens and stand on the medal stand. It would go a long way if he immediately turned French daydream and made a long run down the left edge of the field, passing to Aaron Grandidier Nkanang for the try that broke the 7-7 tie, before Dupont added two more tries to make it 28-7 in the brisk race.
A country of 68 million people turns a country of 950,000 upside down to entertain its national singer for an hour in the acoustic delight of the Stade de France, after which the people leave to share more joy somewhere else.
“To the people back home,” said Fiji coach Osea Kolinisau, the 2016 captain who took over just a few months ago, “I'm sorry we couldn't uphold the tradition.”
Kolinisau exhorted his team on the value of a silver medal, especially given Fiji's increasingly poor performances over the past few years, and perhaps there will be some understanding from one of those winning-hardened fanbases on the ground.
“It's going to be a quieter one, not like previous Olympics,” Aquila Kama of the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation said, “but people back home will be proud because they weren't expected to win anything in this Olympics.” [soccer] In Brazil, everyone is a coach. But judging by the reaction of fans on social media, they are still proud of this defeat.”
As one Fijian observer pointed out, they still go to church.
They had a pretty long night because of the curvature of the Earth. When their team beat Australia 31-7 in the semifinal at about 4:30 p.m. Paris time, it was 2:30 a.m. over the Pacific Ocean in Suva, Fiji's capital and largest city. When the match against France started at 7:45 p.m. Paris time, it was 5:45 a.m. in Suva.
“The whole country is going crazy,” says Walan Gundar, a Fijian living in Sydney. “And [United] America, Australia, New Zealand, they're all following suit. I think rugby brings countries together.”
“When Fiji plays, everything stops,” says Ulaiasi Tui Tubou, a Fijian who has lived in Britain since joining the Royal Navy in 2000. “Everything stops and people are focused on the game. And when the game is over, it all comes back to normal.”
Speaking at the stadium between the semi-finals and the final, Tuoi Toubou said knowingly: “Right now, everyone is waiting for the final at 5 o'clock in the morning. Some will be taking a nap. Some will be drinking kava. And then the final starts again and everything is quiet. Quiet. [but then] You'll know if Fiji scores a try because the whole country will be excited. Even if you don't have a TV and you want to know, you'll know if Fiji scores a try because everything moves. Baaaah! There was just a sound, a bang. Baaaah! It's all over and you know what, we scored a try.”
Tui Tubou's brother, who lives in Suva, sent a photo of a family gathering of about 10 people near another one nearby, showing people sitting and waiting at what seemed to be 4 a.m. From the stadium, Tui Tubou could picture some of them leaning back, eyes closed.
The sound he imitated reached Fiji's 110 or so inhabited islands, out of the country's more than 330. It continued the same fast, ferocious and free approach that Fiji had so well displayed in their semifinal defeat to Australia, 7-0. The Fijian players sang the national anthem, “Meda Dei Doka” (“God Bless Fiji”), their mouths moving on the TV monitors. Tears streamed down player Joseba Talakolo's face, but the fans could not be heard. What followed was an overwhelmingly moving rendition of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” a song often heard at World Cups back then.
And when the action got going, Fiji immediately had the crowd visibly on edge. A very big, agile player, Celestino Lovetaumada, ran up and down the pitch and passed the ball to another very big, agile player, Hosiah Raisk, who ran most of the remaining distance and casually passed it to Tarakolo to score. For a moment, everything was quiet, even in a sport that doesn't take much time.
However, France equalised just before half-time and then Dupont scored a huge try just after the second half kick-off, before adding two more tries of his own.
The World won rugby sevens against Fiji after a good effort. As the whole of France cheered for the hosts' first gold medal and half the team was in tears, the Fijian players crouched on the grass and stayed there for a while, after which Kolinisau had to give the classic silver medal speech. He rallied his team beside the bench while the French players ran off to another area of enthusiastic fans.
“I looked at them and they were really disappointed that we didn't win,” he said. “I told them, 'Look, we didn't win the gold medal at the Olympics, but we did win a silver medal. A lot of athletes dream of being in your shoes. … Some people chase it their whole life and never win a medal.”
The coach had only recently taken over and felt that the standards were not high enough, so he had written numerous “warning letters” to the players, which had left the coach fed up. Now, the coach is trying to convince the players of the importance of the silver medal, saying, “I know that the 2016 and 2020 men's teams set the bar very high, and I know the players want to carry on that tradition. But I told them that winning a silver medal is no mean feat.”
Silver is often relative, and so the world has finally gotten that little giant of Fiji to think about it.
