Maddison Levi weighs in on whether she’s the best women’s sevens player

HSBC SVNS Series try-scoring machine Maddison Levi is unanimously regarded as one of the best women’s sevens players in the world. The Aussie raised the bar both on the Series and at the Olympics, but Levi herself doesn’t believe she will ever truly “be the best.”

In the first stop on last year’s SVNS Series, Levi set the tone by setting a new record by crossing for an incredible 12 tries during the Dubai Sevens. The 22-year-old would go on to break more history by finishing the season with a staggering 69 tries across the eight events.

Australia emerged triumphant at the Grand Final event in Madrid earlier this year as they got the better of France 26-7 at Estadio Civitas Metropolitano. It was quite fitting that Levi would score a hat-trick in that decider that ensured France were no chance of an upset.

But Levi wasn’t done.

Following a two-month break after the Series, Levi was front-and-centre for Team Australia at a history-making rugby sevens tournament the Paris Olympic Games. The Aussies were believed to be one of the leading contenders to challenge for gold.

While the Aussies fell short of their goal after losing to Canada in the semi-final and the USA in the battle for bronze, Levi still made more history. Levi set a new marker with 14 tries during the tournament, which was better than the previous record of 10.

But, Levi was as humble as ever when asked by this writer if there are better players in women’s sevens right now. Without a moment of hesitation, Levi responded with “definitely” before going on to explain why with a big smile.

“I’ve learned from the players I play against,” Levi told RugbyPass at the Rugby Australia Awards in Sydney on Wednesday evening.

“We say we train against some of the best athletes in the world and having the likes of Faith Nathan up there keeping me on my toes, and even Bienne Terita, everyone’s such an awesome player in their own way and you pick up a little bit of everything from someone else.

“The thing I like most if that I’ll never be the best or I’ll never be good enough – which sounds pretty bad as an athlete – but you’re always constantly critiquing yourself to get better. I think that’s why as athletes we keep breaking that stereotype and we keep raising the bar to become better athletes.”

While there’s nothing the Australians can do to change what happened at the Paris Games, they do have an opportunity now to put that behind them in a way. The reigning SVNS Series champions will begin their overall title defence at the Dubai Sevens in late November.

Dubai’s The Sevens Stadium will host the first leg of the Series once again, before the rugby sevens world focuses on the second leg in Cape Town, South Africa. Dates for events in Perth, Vancouver and Hong Kong China have also been announced.

“Obviously, we had a great start to the Olympics and the outcome at the end, obviously, something that we weren’t expecting,” Levi reflected.

“I think the good thing about our group is we’re a young group, we’re young and upcoming. The next challenge is the (SVNS Series) and how we can come out, we can burst back onto that scene because we know we’re better than that.

“We know our potential so just us playing footy will make us a better team. We had a lot of debutants, a lot of injuries last year, faced a lot of adversity and I think the maturity we showed at the Olympics was something pretty special.”