Hong Kong Sevens Team Bidding for Unprecedented Fourth Sports Stars Award

The Hong Kong Rugby Football Union’s (HKRFU) National Men’s Sevens squad is one of the nominees for the Samsung 2013 Hong Kong Sports Stars Awards for Team Only Sport.

The men’s sevens team has won the same award four times overall, including the last three years running and are again a strong contender for this year’s award.

Dai Rees - Click to Enlarge (more pics)

The team was nominated in the Hong Kong Sports Stars Award for Team Only Sport category. It was the fifth consecutive nomination for the HKRFU Men’s National Hong Kong Sevens team, which won the award in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

“It’s an honour to be nominated once again. I think it reflects the fact that we had another good season in 2013 and our results are now becoming more and more consistent,” said HKRFU Head of Technical Development and Performance Dai Rees. “We qualified for the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Moscow and finished the HSBC Sevens World Series with a ranking of 16th overall. We were also invited to the IOC World Games in Colombia, finishing in fifth place, and took second place overall in the Asian Sevens series ... More critically for the awards nomination process was our silver medal finish in the China National Games. Hong Kong didn’t win many medals in China and we managed to come home with one, albeit silver.”

Winning a fourth consecutive Sports Stars Award will be a strong fillip for the men’s sevens team, who will be contesting the HSBC Sevens World Series qualifier tournament at this year’s Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens. The winner of that 12-team competition will assume an automatic spot on the HSBC Sevens World Series in 2015.

Hong Kong had an impressive run in the 2013 Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens finishing as runners-up in the Shield. Hong Kong beat Argentina in the quarter-final and the United States in the semi-final, before bowing out to England in the Shield Final.

The Sports Stars awards are open for voting by members of the public. Members of the public with Hong Kong Identity Card are eligible to vote for their favourite athletes/teams (each person can only vote once) at the Samsung 2013 Hong Kong Sports Stars Awards official website.