Santiago Gómez Cora: “Our main goal is to get into the Paris 2024 Olympic Games”

The Argentine rugby sevens team, better known as Los Pumas 7s, won its fifth title on the World Tour just a week ago. With the two-time championship in Vancouver, the team consolidated itself as a power in the modality, something that occurred in large part thanks to the work of the coaching staff commanded by Santiago Gómez Cora, who since 2013 leads this project that today has borne fruit. After a 2021 marked by obtaining the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games and a 2022 of great performance in several tournaments of the Rugby 7 World Series, the national team started this year with a superlative level that allowed it to win the title in Hamilton and Vancouver and reach the final in Los Ángeles.De the hand of great players such as Marcos Moneta, Rodrigo Isgró, Luciano González, Santiago Álvarez, Matías Osadczuk and Agustín Fraga, Los Pumas 7s have consolidated and established themselves as one of the most important selected of the modality, since they are currently in second place in the ranking of the World Sevens Circuit and would be qualifying for Paris 2024, where they will seek to repeat or improve the performance in the last Olympic event. To learn more about the great present of the team, the exponential growth of rugby sevens in the country and the player development program, Filo.News spoke with Santiago Gómez Cora, coach of the Argentine men’s rugby sevens team, who was involved in the five titles that the national team holds in the Rugby 7 World Series. The fact that we have won three stages in one year speaks very well of how the team works. The satisfaction of seeing a convinced squad is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a coach. Not only for executing the game plan that we have been working for a long time, but for how convinced the players are to execute each move. In addition, he highlighted the work that the boys have done in the tournaments with good and bad results. We started in Hong Kong with some details that did not allow us to go all the way or be champions, but we already saw a good volume of play. We were able to adjust things over these months and that helped us get to this reality with the wins in Vancouver and Hamilton.
Beyond the titles on the World Tour, there has been an exponential growth of rugby sevens in the country, what factors influenced the generation of a change? There are quite a few edges that generated a change in the modality. Obviously, being inside the Olympic Games gave the team another hierarchy, another preparation and more economic resources. Starting with Rio 2016, we started with an early player detection programme, which has helped us develop and broaden the foundation for rugby sevens. The inclusion of the specialty in Rio 2016 was a first break in terms of growth issues, while the second, related more to the results, was Tokyo 2020, where we won a medal and the team was convinced that it could beat any team. I think from that Olympic event the squad realized that it could be competitive and could think about succeeding instead of speculating about the result. You just mentioned the early detection program for players, what can you tell about this project? We took players when we were 16 years old and started to develop it. That’s why we don’t suffer every time a player leaves because of injury or because he decides to play conventional rugby. We foresee those situations and before waiting we prefer to generate players. With detection, we look more for an athlete and not so much a rugby player. What we want is for it to have an X factor. By X factor I mean that it is unbalancing in something. It can be in speed, height, power, tackle, obtaining or aerial play. From there, we worked on the rest of the qualities and formed a more complete player to include in the game plan.
-What does it generate to you that several players from the current Los Pumas 7s squad have been part of that development project?
We are proud of his present, since he is one of the players we took as young people when we started the project for the Youth Olympic Games to obtain a medal in Buenos Aires. The goal was not primarily to achieve that medal, as we took it as a means to have a good base of young players for the future. Great players such as Lucio Cinti, Ignacio Mendy, Luciano González and Marcos Moneta have come out. Seeing them progress gives us pride.
-What changed so that Los Pumas 7s today puegive defeat to great powers of the modality such as New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa?
Usually, when you are looking for a sevens player you look at a talented or a sprinter. That’s why we try to go the other way and look for an athlete. We focus on three kinds of players: obtaining, defining and gestation. If I have a very skilled player, but if he is not fast or he cannot endure six games at a spectacular pace, it will not help me. With all this in mind, we want players to be able to tolerate the physical demands of teams like Samoa, South Africa, New Zealand or Fiji. Thanks to this base of players that we were developing, today we can stand before the great teams, something that was previously difficult for us.-What are the objectives for the remainder of this 2023 for Los Pumas 7s?
This year our main goal is to get into the Paris 2024 Olympic Games through the World Sevens Tour, where the first four of the standings qualify, or through the South American that would be played in June. Having secured the classification we would begin to plan what will be the Olympic event.
You have been involved for a good part of your life with the rugby sevens team both in the role of player and coach, what does it generate to have been present in the most outstanding achievements of Los Pumas 7s?
It is a huge pride and it was always a bit of the purpose. I have had to offer to play abroad and I have not accepted them because of the desire to represent my country. I really liked sevens and that’s why I never played conventional rugby in Europe, where I have had proposals in my playing stage. As a coach the same thing happens to me. I could coach other selected teams or other teams, but I have this project that we started in 2016 and that will culminate in 2024. In my personal case, I am moved by the passion and the shirt of the country.

Original source in Spanish