Coach Baber takes us through Fijian 7s Olympic journey

Five years ago our Fijian 7s did the incredible after winning the countries first ever Olympic Gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, these players we’re looked up to as hero’s as they uplifted such a small nation, putting Fiji on top of the Olympics podium.

Five years later we saw history unfold as our Fijian 7s team won their 2 consecutive Olympic gold medal in a row.

Considering this group of young exceptional athletes, most of whom who haven’t even played at a world sevens series tournament, the win on Wednesday night was an iconic achievement.

The essence of what our golden boys have achieved is a testimony of what hard work, dedication and never giving up on your dream can lead you too.

Head coach Gareth Baber mentioned that their journey towards the Olympics was much more tougher then one could tell, he explained how they had to restructure their preparation campaign from when the Covid pandemic upended the journey last year.

“You know we tried to recreate the ethos of the journey around the players, this was before the situation we found ourselves in last year when the journey was postponed,” said Baber.

By looking at the global pandemic situation, coach Baber knew that the journey will be a more difficult one. Baber looked further beyond the possibility of sight, making sacrifice, taking the hard yards, continues adaptation and improvisation through their preparation campaign, to get to the top of that Olympics podium.

“Going through that journey I knew it was going to be difficult at times, players will question, the motivation, the pain they would go through, the sacrifice,” added Baber.

“Keeping some sort of an adjective measure showing them where they’ve been, where they were at that point, where they’re going too, showing what they’re putting in and giving them reviews and reflecting on their process is a good mechanism I use as a coach to give them an objective to not get too emotional about certain situation,” added coach Baber.

Something that captivated Baber was seeing the hunger from most of the young prospects towards their quest to get to the Olympic arena, something they could only have dreamt of a few months ago.

“Its been a journey for certain for few of these players in the squad who haven’t even played at world stage, they’ve learned a lot, and lot of our young players are playing international rugby at the highest level where’s 6 months ago they couldn’t have dream of it,” added Baber.

One of the unsung heroes in the squad is strength and conditioning head coach Mr. Naca Cawanibuka who said they made lots of plannings and periodising with the whole cycle of their preparation leading up to the Tokyo Olympics.

“A lot of work put in by our management team interns of operations and logistics thats gone behind, the planning of trying to get the best into our players in order to get the best out of them,” explained Naca.

“We’ve exposed them to different kinds of training, we’ve taken them up to the mountains, we took them through obstacle training courses, and we’ve taken them to different part of Fiji just to prepare them for this,” said Naca.

Coach Baber said that the experience that Mr Naca and Jerry have from the Rio Olympics was very valuable.

“Being able to create the culture that we have around the team and being able to bring players in to fit that culture and we survived in that culture and what you see out there is a selective of a personality type of Jerry and guidance of Mr. Naca,” said Baber.

Baber has also thanked his Assistant Coach, Brad Harris “who has put an immense sacrifice in terms of leaving his family in Australia, the work he has put in and the rapport that he has built with the players that has elevated Fiji once again.”

He further stated that his “focus has been on getting this mission done, and for the players themselves what they’ve done for the people of Fiji, everything the country have been going through at the moment is part of our foundation for what did these last three days.”

“I just want to thank all the people of Fiji for believing in us, for all the support you’ve shown us, we’re proud of what we’ve achieved and this will be one to remember,” added coach Baber.