The 12-woman U.S. rugby team was named Thursday for the second-ever Olympic women’s sevens tournament in Tokyo.
Rugby was re-added to the Olympic program in 2016 after a 92-year absence, but with a different discipline in sevens and, for the first time, including a women’s tournament.
The U.S. lost in the quarterfinals in Rio, then improved to rank second in the world in 2019 (when Alev Kelter led the World Series in points). The Americans dropped back to fifth in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 World Series, which was dominated by New Zealand.
The U.S. Olympic men’s rugby roster has not been announced yet.