My greatest regret as a player is that I never had the opportunity to compete for a gold medal at the Olympic Games.

I was fortunate enough to be a member of the New Zealand team that won gold at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. It was an awesome experience and gave me a flavour of what it might be like to compete at an Olympic Games.

Like many of my fellow top players, I grew up watching the Games. I was sports mad and watching the world's best athletes playing on the world's greatest stage gave me a great buzz.

I wanted to be there. I would have been proud to call myself an Olympian and speaking to rugby players from all corners of the world it is a sentiment that is echoed from New Zealand to Brazil, South Africa to China and everywhere in between.

You see it is not just to have the opportunity to go for a medal that excites us all, but also the opportunity to showcase our fantastic sport at the Olympic Games, to experience the Olympic village, mix with the world's best athletes and proudly represent our nation - you know it gives me a buzz just thinking about it.

Now, I might be too old to be around to play in Rio in 2016, but I was here in Copenhagen to express my belief that sevens is the perfect match for the Olympic Games, to represent the world's top players who have all backed the campaign, and share with the members and the global sporting community our passion for a sport that has brought so much joy, so many special memories and provided me with friends all over the world.

As someone who spent over a decade playing sevens, I firmly believe that it has an exciting blend of qualities that make it so suited to the Olympic Games. It reaches out to new audiences and engages youth, both girls and boys. It is played exceptionally talented players who are undoubtedly the fittest and quickest in the Game. It is also unpredictable and is already a hit with sports fans around the world who like to party, soak up the atmosphere and support all the teams.

It is also a sport that has slotted successfully into all the major multi-sport championships outside of the Games. As I have already mentioned, it is a hugely popular event at the Commonwealth Games attracting sell-out crowds, but sevens has also proven to be a hit at the World and Asian Games, leaving Rugby legacies within each host nation. sevens will also be played at the All Africa and Pan American Games, giving the opportunity for more nations to compete within a multi-sport environment - that is very exciting.

As I have already mentioned, there really are no "givens" in sevens as I can certainly testify. I played against the very best teams in the world in both 15-a-side and sevens, but only sevens currently provides the opportunity for emerging nations to compete with a defeat the best. I was in Dubai in March for rugby World Cup Sevens and I watched as pre-tournament favourites crashed out to a new generation of emerging teams.



Was I surprised? Maybe. Should I have been surprised? Definitely not. You see, sevens is a great leveller and rewards the brave and the likes of Kenya, Tunisia, the Cook Islands, United States, Zimbabwe, Portugal and Uruguay have all enjoyed success, claiming scalps. Indeed the quarter-finals of the Dubai event saw the four pre-tournament favourites crash out.

Yet it is not just the men's tournaments that provide the surprises. Women's rugby sevens is also thriving. In Dubai in March, I watched Spain, Thailand, Uganda, Russia, China, the US and Canada all cause upsets. Now, I must apologise to members of those teams mentioned if any offence is taken by classifying them as underdogs, but for those outside the Rugby family, this may come as a bit of a shock.

Indeed I was also pleased to see that the women's game has made great advances in recent years with standards increasing across the board and I have no doubt that Olympic Games inclusion will propel women's rugby to new heights around the world.

Coming back to my experiences, I know that sevens will be a success in an Olympic Games context. I know that the fans will travel, the top players will be there and that rugby will be a proud member of the Olympic family.

I also know that the global rugby family will be unified as one, and will have been awaiting the news from Copenhagen with everything crossed. Being here in Copenhagen I have been privileged to see that passion that International Rugby Board (IRB) President Bernard Lapasset and his team have for the Game, their dedication to the cause. I have also seen what this would mean to developing nations and have seen the messages of support from the global rugby family. Rugby sevens is the perfect fit for the Olympic Games.

Jonah Lomu won 63 caps for New Zealand in a career that started when he burst onto the international rugby scene during the 1994 Hong Kong Sevens tournament. At the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, he won a gold medal representing the All Blacks in the sevens tournaments