Landry competes on international stage
Recent X-Women rugby alumnus Ghislaine Landry participated at the World University Rugby Championship in Porto, Portugal in late July as a member of Team Canada’s Rugby 7’s team. The team placed fourth overall and Landry was a captain of the national squad.
No stranger to the rugby pitch, Landry has been involved in several international competitions over her rugby career, in addition to a stellar four years with the X-Women program which saw her earn CIS Player of the Year on two occasions, All-Canadian status in each of her four playing years, along with a team CIS championship gold medal and two silver medals. She also re-wrote the AUS record book prior to her graduation from the StFX Human Kinetics program last May, holding many individual and career conference records.
In her most recent endeavor with the national rugby 7’s team at the World University Championship, team Canada finished with an overall record of 4-2, winning all four round robin games before suffering close losses in the semi-finals and bronze medal games.
Landry commented, “We played well throughout the round robin and finished first in our pool and were set up to play Russia in the semis, but we ended up losing to them by a 10-0 score. This was a big blow to team moral and affected our play in the afternoon bronze medal game against Portugal, who we had beaten 34-7 the day before in round robin play.”
Portugal went on to defeat the Canadian squad by a close 5-0 score in the bronze medal game. Spain took home the gold medal with a 17-10 win over Russia. Landry was unable to play in the bronze medal game after she tweaked her knee and hamstring in the semi-final loss to the Russians. Both the semi-final and bronze medal games were played on the same day, not allowing for much injury recovery time in the quick game of rugby 7’s which often features multiple games in the same day.
“While the results may not have been what we would have liked, every player came away from the tournament with more than they came with - more experience, more talent, more knowledge, and at the end of the day that's a positive no matter how you look at it," says Landry upon returning home to Canada.
And what does the future hold for the rugby standout and four-time StFX Athlete of the Year? Unfortunately for X-Women fans, Landry will not be returning to the Antigonish school for a fifth and final year of CIS rugby eligibility. Her immediate plans are to travel to England in September where she will live and work for the year with a community foundation that helps youth and other community groups overcome obstacles using sports and games.
She will continue to play rugby and vie for a spot on Canada’s national team roster and/or national rugby 7’s roster. With the recent inclusion of rugby 7’s in the 2016 Olympic Games, the sport has really grown and developed quite rapidly in the past few years and young rugby players now have the goal of striving towards playing their sport on the ultimate international stage.