The Black Fern Sevens are the defending Olympic champions after downing Canada in the gold medal match.
They were pushed all the way by a resilient Canadian side, eventually running out winners 19-12 after being trailing 12-7 at the half time break.
A Woodman-Wickliffe yellow card for a head clash in a tackle saw Canada take advantage to score at the end of the first half.
However, the team kept their composure in the second half, running in two tries to one.
Co-captain Sarah Hirini made the all important bust to eventually set Waaka away to score in the corner and seal the victory.
“To be honest I'm bloody sore, my face hurts, but I'm so happy," Hirini said after the match.
“I don’t know how to put that into words, what this crowd has done for us over the last few days, what Aotearoa does for us on a daily, they get up in the middle of the night to watch us.
"We feel you, we hear you, we see you - this one’s for you guys. We're bringing that gold medal back to Aotearoa, let's go!”
The Black Ferns were in dominant form heading into the final day of the competition, having won all their previous games by more than 26 points.
A tough battle against the US in the semifinal saw them go behind early before rallying to run out 24-12 winners.
The Black Ferns sevens are the first women's rugby team to pull off back to back Olympic golds. Fiji's men's team is the only one who had been able to do that before today.
Hirini, Woodman-Wickliffe, Theresa Setefano and Tyla King are now part of a very exclusive club to win three Olympic medals, with two golds from three games.
Doing it tough
It's an incredible return to the top for this team. While they won four world series legs this year, it was Australia who took the overall title.
Not only that, but for the majority of this season they were with out legendary sevens player and co-captain Hirini.
Hirini went down in the opening tournament of the world series in Dubai (December) with a ruptured ACL. When Hirini departed the team to return back to New Zealand for surgery, the sevens sisters farewelled their skipper with an emotional haka.
Hirini's injury looked certain to end her Olympic dream, but the skipper crammed what many would consider 9-12 months of recovery time into just seven months.
The result caps the end of the Black Fern sevens careers of Woodman-Wickliffe and Tyla King.
Both leave the game as legends — Woodman-Wickliffe now a six-time world series champion, a two time Olympic gold medallist, with a silver in Rio.
That is on top of being a Commonwealth Games champion and two time Sevens World Cup winner.
She was also named World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Decade (2020), World Rugby Women's Player of the Year (2017) and World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Year (2015). Meanwhile in the 15s game she is a Rugby World Cup winner (2017 and 2022).
King leaves as a two-time Rugby World Cup Sevens champion, a Commonwealth Games winner a two-time Olympic gold medallist and silver medallist in Rio.
The 30-year-old was named Black Ferns Sevens Player of the Year in 2015 and World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year (2023). King now makes the shift to the NRL Women's Premiership where she has signed a two year deal with the with the St George Dragons.
SHARE ME