STEPHANIE Johnston is, potentially, on the brink of making history. This summer, the 29-year-old could become the first Scottish woman to ever play rugby in the Olympic Games, an achievement that would see her name permanently inked into the history books.
Johnston is the sole Scot in the 24-strong British women’s rugby 7s squad alongside 21 Englishwomen and two Welsh players. The Dundonian is in no way taking an Olympic appearance for granted though – the squad will be cut to just 12 players for the Olympic Games and Johnston admits that she has “absolutely no idea” if she’ll make the final cut.
A practising vet, Johnston shelved her career last October to play rugby full-time. Initially, she joined up with the GB squad on a three-month trial basis, which quickly turned into a longer-term deal. Johnston may only have been a professional athlete for less than eight months but the difference it has made to her game has, she believes, been invaluable. “It’s been an amazing experience to be a full-time athlete,” she says. “Everything has improved – my fitness, my skills, my understanding of the game and being around so many talented players every day means that there’s always somebody around to bounce ideas off and ask questions to.”
The opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics is now only 83 days away but Johnston still has to wait another two months until the final GB squad is announced. With rugby the final sport to name its team, it is not until the July 19 that she will know if she is Rio-bound or not. While two more months may seem a considerable amount of time, to Johnston, it feels like nothing and she is constantly aware that selection D-Day is fast approaching. “I think because there’s so few tournaments left now, it feels very close,” she says. “Everyone is very aware that final selection is coming up and it’s getting more tense in the squad. It is stressful but you just need to try and put it to the back of your head, despite the fact that every single thing you do day in, day out, is with Rio in mind. It can be hard but you need to not let it take over.”
Johnston has been in a somewhat strange position over the past seven months; while the English players are competing regularly on the world 7s circuit with their national team, Johnston and her two Welsh squad-mates are left at the British team’s base in Guilford, biding their time until the next GB team selection arrives.
She admits to, somewhat irrationally, feeling despondent at being left behind but it has also had the advantage of allowing her to develop her skills. The improvements she makes during these training spells will, she hopes, be enough to ensure her Olympic selection and in speaking to Johnston, it is easy to detect just how much being part of Team GB would mean to her.
There have been some who have claimed that rugby shouldn’t be included in the Olympic Games but the Scot is quick to refute this. “The Olympics is everything,” she says. “It’s an absolute dream to get there. We had a talk recently from the BOA and we were shown some videos from past Team GB athletes and the way they speak about the Games – it sounds amazing and it would be such an honour to be a part of Team GB.”
That Johnston is in this position is something that, as a child, she never imagined for herself. Growing up, she had no interest at all in rugby and it was only when she started studying at Glasgow University that she decided to join the rugby team.
Her progress through the sport has been remarkable and post-Rio, Johnston will rejoin the Scottish team, in which she has been a stalwart in recent years. While her involvement with the British squad forced her to miss this year’s Six Nations, the experience she has gained over the past seven months will, she believes, mean that she rejoins the Scotland squad and the 15s game as a massively improved player, which can only help the Scotland team going forward.
“I think this experience has been invaluable for me – I’ve improved so much and it shows that even in a short amount of time you can progress hugely. That’s really encouraging because if we were able to do that in Scotland then we’d see a massive improvement really quickly.
"Training with the English girls has made me realise that there really isn’t any gap at all between myself and them and I think that’s very positive for Scotland going forward because it shows that we’re not far off.”
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