The field for the USA Sevens leg of the IRB Sevens World Series is starting to come together nicely, with this report from the IRB that Brazil has been invited to Las Vegas to give the sevens a whirl.

It makes sense to invite the Brazilians, if for no other reason than the combination of Brazil’s fans and the ever entertaining Kenyan fans could be an explosion of awesomeness! But Brazil is also the host country of the 2016 Olympic Games, where Rugby Sevens will debut.  According to the IRB story:

Rugby Sevens will make its Olympic debut at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro and, as host nation, Brazil holds a unique place in the history of the Game.

One of the nice things about the IRB Sevens World Series is that each host nation invites a certain number of countries to compete that might not otherwise be competing in the series. We saw that in this year’s Australia Sevens with the inclusion of Papua New Guinea and Niue, and in last year’s USA Sevens with Uruguay’s participation. This gives each of these nations a taste of Olympic Rugby, and might even be a driving force towards their focus on developing competitive teams in time to qualify for the Olympics.