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The Hong Kong Sevens (Chinese: 香港國際七人欖球賽) is considered the premier tournament on the IRB Sevens World Series rugby sevens competition. The Hong Kong Sevens is the sixth tournament on the IRB Sevens World Series (following the USA Sevens), and is held annually in Hong Kong on a weekend in late March. The tournament spans three days, beginning on a Friday and concluding on Sunday. The tournament is organised each year by the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union (HKRFU), ==History== The Hong Kong Sevens was originally the idea of the Marketing and Promotions Manager of Rothman's Export for a Pan Asia 15s Rugby Tournament. Rodney Bentham-Wood wanted Rothmans to sponsor a pan Asia rugby Tournament. Leah May was considering Carlsberg as the main sponsor. However, after a discussion between him and the chairman of the HKRFU, South African entrepreneur, A.D.C. "Tokkie" Smith, it was decided that a Sevens Tournament would be cheaper and simpler to set up. The idea was then implemented by Duncan McTavish (HKRFC then captain), Trevor J. Bedford OBE (Chairman of Hong Kong Land, Jardine Matheson Limited, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and Director of HSBC) and Ian Gow, the Rothmans' Tobacco company executive for Hong Kong. After an initial proposal was refused by the Rugby Football Union in England, the HKRFU changed its focus and sent out invitations to Asian and Pacific sides. On 28 March 1976, clubs from Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Japan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Fiji participated in the first Hong Kong Sevens Tournament at the Hong Kong Football Club in Happy Valley sponsored by Rothmans' Tobacco and Cathay Pacific. This was an important step as this was one of the first rugby tournaments that attracted commercial sponsorship. Of the countries represented in the inaugural sevens tournament, only Australia and New Zealand did not send national sides, instead being represented by the Wallaroos and the Cantabrians respectively. These two clubs met in the final where the Cantabrians won 24-8. The series then grew into a competition with national representative sevens sides competing, and with this growth, the tournament moved to the Hong Kong Stadium in 1982. The Hong Kong Sevens were ahead of their time, and an influential force in the modernisation of rugby union, for example, the Hong Kong Sevens were one of the first rugby union tournaments to attract major sponsorship, when the airline Cathay Pacific sponsored the 1976 tournament.〔Starmer-Smith, p144〕 They also provided a level of cosmopolitan international competition, which tended not to exist in rugby before the first Rugby World Cup in 1987,〔Starmer-Smith, p142〕 especially since was not seen as one of the "Big Eight", and other than some involvement with , the Commonwealth teams tended to be notoriously clannish. By 1986, the Hong Kong Sevens were held up as a positive example to others: :"''This Seven-a-Side international tournament is without a doubt the most spectacular, exotic, best organized Rugby competition of its kind in the world, and it has consistently produced the highest standard of Sevens Rugby seen anywhere. :''"I was not surprised on my first visit to see quality play from the Australian, New Zealand, Fijian, and British players, but I was staggered at the amazingly high quality play produced by countries I never even knew played Rugby. South Korea and Western Samoa were every bit as good as Japan and Tonga. , and found their lack of sheer size and bulk an insuperable handicap, but against each other they displayed a range of running and handling skills which demanded unqualified praise. , and the were inevitably outgunned by the teams from the major Rugby-playing nations but they still have a remarkably high level of skill which promises well for the future of the game.''" :''"The week of the Hong Kong tournament allows 24 Rugby-playing nations to intermingle for several days, and the huge cross-fertilisation of ideas can only be beneficial in the long term for the emerging nations. After the first day of the play when the top eight seeded teams meet the smaller fish in a pool system, the second day is divided into three different competitions... The strength of this great tournament is that on the opening day the most famous players in the world share a pitch with unknown opponents from countries where Rugby is a minority sport... While tournaments like the Hong Kong Sevens continue to be played, Rugby administrators can be confident that the game will continue to thrive in over 100 countries worldwide.''"〔Starmer-Smith, p142〕 Bill McLaren, in his autobiography ''Talking of Rugby'' writes at length about his Hong Kong Sevens experiences: :"''I remember a big South Sea islander saying that, in his view, the Hong Kong sevens were really the Olympic games of Rugby Union. Certainly, the Hong Kong event encapsulates all the really good things that the game has to offer–splendid organisation, wonderful sporting spirit, universal camaraderie, admirable field behaviour, the most enjoyable crowd participation, the chance for emergent rugby nations to lock horns with the mighty men of , , , , and the Barbarians. There is, too, scintillating running and handling which is what the game is supposed to be all about.''"〔McLaren, Bill ''Talking of Rugby'' (1991, Stanley Paul, London ISBN 0-09-173875-X), p 166〕 However, despite this apparent diversity, some of the same old problems which had dogged international rugby were still manifest in the Hong Kong Sevens in the 1980s - for example, in a photograph of the vs game at the tournament in 1984, the teams do not appear to include anyone who is ethnically Arabian or Chinese, instead both teams are quite clearly of northern European ethnic origin.〔Starmer-Smith, p146〕 In 1994, the venue was deemed too small for the tournament and was rebuilt into a 40,000 seat stadium now named the Hong Kong Stadium. Today, 24 national representative sides compete in the tournament. These include the 16 'core' members of the IRB Sevens World Series, plus eight further invited teams. In 1997 and 2005, the Hong Kong Sevens was not held; taking its place was the Rugby World Cup Sevens, which Hong Kong hosted in both years. Fiji won both World Cup Sevens tournaments. In 1998, the first tournament after the transfer of sovereignty to China, tickets were not sold internationally and the event was stricken with a bankrupt sponsor Peregrine. The Union's Organising Committee worked hard, and successfully implemented its marketing strategy to get the local population involved through "Friday Night is Party Night" and secured CSFB as sponsors "on a spur-of-the-moment",〔Yiu, Enoch (Mar 28, 2011). "Bank reluctantly takes its final bow as a major Sevens sponsor", ''South China Morning Post''〕 the event was a comparatively huge success. In 2011, after HSBC negotiated title sponsorship to the entire World Sevens Series tournaments, it was no longer possible for Credit Suisse to sponsor the Hong Kong leg after 14 years.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hong Kong Sevens」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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