‘Too small to play’: Canadian sevens star Ghislaine Landry beats the odds and rises to top

Although she stands only 1.6 metres, Ghislaine Landry is a towering figure on the rugby pitch.

Hong Kong is one of six cities who will host combined events, which sees the women’s side expand to eight rounds, and will invariably see the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens expand from three days to four.

Landry, 30, is also the World Series all-time leading scorer, accumulating 1,090 points over what has become an illustrious career that almost never came to fruition.

Although she got her first cap in 2011 with Canada’s senior national team, she spent an astonishing four years within the country’s programme without ever playing.

Landry did a lot of training on her own as the Canadian brass told her she was “too small” and “weak”. Then along came head coach John Tait who gave the diminutive player a chance to perform on the big stage.

“To be honest, if John didn’t come in I don’t know where my rugby career would be right now,” said Landry, who has gone on to win an Olympic bronze medal and a gold medal at the Pan-American Games. “The timing was good and, for me, John was a fresh set of eyes.”

But the Canadian captain said looking back on her rough start, the struggles paid off in the end.

“If you have an easy path the whole way you don’t develop that fire and that grit that comes from hard times. For me being told ‘no’ and being told I was ‘too small’, it created a lot more fire inside.

“I loved the game before but I think when someone tries to take that away from you, you really realise you’re in it for the right reasons, and for me it really did drive a deeper passion for what I was doing on and off the field.”

Landry, who was profiled recently in an HSBC documentary titled “From ‘too small to play’ to record-breaking rugby points scorer”, also credits her family, who are featured heavily in the film. Landry said her father would drive her to practice and encourage her to play whatever sport she wanted, and her mother offered an archetype of female stability.

“I had a mom that really showed me a confident woman and that woman can do anything. So I never thought I couldn’t do it or thought I was a girl and rugby was for boys. That never even crossed my mind and I really do think the way I was raised is a part of that.”

When Landry, who hails from Toronto, Ontario, started with the national team in 2011, rugby in Canada was a fringe sport at best. Now both the sevens teams and the 15-a-side squads for both men and women have made great strides, and Rugby Canada made news in 2017 when they announced the sport’s board of directors and provincial unions must have at least 40 per cent of both genders.

Landry said she would like to see complete “gender equity” when it comes to the players and governance, as well as the sport competing with regular Canadian pursuits like hockey and soccer.

“I would love to see rugby become one of those main sports. You look at our competition at the international level, rugby is so ingrained in their culture. You look at England, New Zealand, Australia, all of those countries, their parents played rugby, their family played rugby, it’s on TV and it’s in the news.”

Landry is excited to make Hong Kong a regular stop on the women’s tour, saying it is most definitely a far cry from the natural, picturesque and quiet ocean views of Victoria, British Columbia, where she lives and trains with the national programme.

“It’s so electric in (Hong Kong Stadium). The first time I ever played there, I couldn’t believe how loud it was. I remember singing to myself and I couldn’t even hear myself, that’s how loud it was.”