Fiji the Favorite as Rugby Returns to Olympics

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — When the Fiji men’s rugby sevens team won the World Sevens Series earlier this year, it was a moment to savor: back-to-back titles in the sport’s biggest competition.

That success could seem minor, though, compared with the prize at stake in Rio de Janeiro in two weeks.

Fiji has competed in 16 Olympic Games to date, but it has never won a medal in any sport. That looks destined to change, now that rugby sevens — Fiji’s national sport — is part of the Olympics.

Rugby, the full 15-a-side version, has been in the Olympics before, but you have to go back to the 1924 Games in Paris, when the United States won the gold. This year’s version will be sevens, the shorter,…