TOKYO: Japan’s Ano Kuwai, 34, is set to become the first person ever in the world to both have played in and referee Olympic rugby matches when she takes the pitch as a rugby sevens match official at the Paris Games.

Shortly before her retirement as a player in 2021, the Japan Rugby Football Union asked Kuwai about switching to a referee. She asked the union whether she would be able to appear at the Olympic Games three years later, and a union official told her, “It’s not impossible.”

The hope that she might be able to stand on an Olympic rugby pitch again as a match official helped her cope with not being selected for Japan’s national rugby team for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.

“If there is a 1 percent probability, I will do what I can to make it 100 percent,” she remembered thinking.

Kuwai was initially a track and field athlete in the discus throw discipline, but learned the joy of playing rugby in a lesson at Chukyo University. She decided to pursue a rugby career and make it to the Olympic Games, switching to the sport in 2012 after her graduation from the university.

She scored Japan’s first-ever Olympic try in women’ rugby at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, the first Olympic Games for her.

Despite her experience as a player, Kuwai faced challenges becoming a match official. She had to relearn the rules of the sport, and sometimes found herself coming close to colliding with players on the pitch.

The former player negotiated with the rugby football union to allow her to study in Britain. She also sought to get accustomed to the speed of rugby sevens by training with the Saitama Wild Knights and the Urayasu D-Rocks, both teams in the Japan Rugby League One, a men’s professional league, believing that men’s games move faster.

Thinking that the Paris Games could possibly be her last Olympic appearance in light of her physical strength required to referee, Kuwai said she will do her best so that “players can perform well without feeling stress.”

She said that words of gratitude from players after matches make all her efforts worthwhile.

JIJI Press