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The twelve Canadian women who will head to Rio as strong gold medal contenders in the debut of rugby sevens as an Olympic even have been confirmed.

Leave no doubt: it’s a team as strong as could be, with little mystery to it.

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The surprise is just one, and even that was known already. The true story is how deep the dozen is. That Canadian coach John Tait and his staff were even able to consider life without a fifteens star like Magali Harvey is the real story here.

In the rugby sevens world, powerful men’s teams like New Zealand, Great Britain and Australia have had to make some challenging selection decisions already. The Canadian women’s team is in that class; picking 12 players was always going to be hard.

This is a deep, deep team. It’s the deepest it’s ever been.

Jennifer Kish is the captain. We always knew that would be so. That she’d be joined by high flying veterans like Kelly Russell, Karen Paquin, Kayla Moleschi, Ashley Steacy, Ghislaine Landry and Bianca Farella was hardly in doubt either.