Olivia Apps, who has proven her toughness on the rugby pitch and also the wilds of Vancouver Island, will rejoin the Canadian women’s sevens team for the first time since winning the silver medal as captain in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The roster was announced this week for the Perth Sevens from Jan. 24-26 in Australia, the third event of the 2024-25 HSBC World Series season, with Apps and Florence Symonds ending their breaks and rejoining the Canadian squad for the first time since Paris.
Apps was bitten by a cougar just before the Olympics last summer while hiking in Strathcona Provincial Park with another woman. The women bear-sprayed the cougar, which fled. Apps was treated at Campbell River Hospital and soon after returned to Starlight Stadium in Langford to continue training for the Paris Olympics. She has shown steadfast focus and refused to dwell on the cougar encounter, telling the sa国际传媒: “It’s all about the rugby. That’s really what’s important.”
Also named to the Canadian roster for Perth is University of Victoria Vikes star Carissa Norsten, the Paris Olympics silver-medallist, who has played in the first two HSBC World Series Sevens tournaments of the season in Dubai and Cape Town. Another UVic Vikes star, Larah Wright, has also been selected on the roster for Perth as a debutante.
Other notables include Paris Olympics silver-medallists Asia Hogan-Rochester of Westshore RFC and Piper Logan along with national-program veterans Breanne Nicholas and Carmen Izyk.
Making their national team sevens debuts will be Wright from the Vikes, Gabrielle Senft from the Castaway Wanderers and Olivia Sarabura. Relative national sevens-team newcomers named to the 14-player squad for Perth, of which 13 will dress, are Camille Arvin-Bérod, Shoshanah Seumanutafa, Savannah Bauder and Mahalia Robinson as new Canadian head coach Jocelyn Barrieau, who has replaced Jack Hanratty, looks long term to Los Angeles 2028.
“We saw a lot of growth for our squad in Dubai and Cape Town in December, which marked the start of a new Olympic cycle for us, with seven players making their international debuts and gaining some critical game experience,” Barrieau said in a statement.
sa国际传媒, currently ranked No. 7 after going 3-1 in Cape Town but 1-4 in Dubai, will open at 20,500-seat HBF Park in the Perth metropolitan area City of Vincent on Jan. 23 against Great Britain before concluding pool play Jan. 24 against Fiji and the Paris Olympics bronze-medallist United States.
