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YEAR IN REVIEW 2015 WORLD RUGBY 75www.sudamericarugby.org twitter: @sudamericarugby The annual General Assembly in June approved the name change from Confederación Sudamericana de Rugby to Sudamérica Rugby, and its staff has grown from two to five with the aim of helping its member unions to accelerate the development and growth of the game.A competition to design the new Sudamérica Rugby logo was opened to the South American rugby family and, after more than 30 imaginative designs were submitted, the successful one was chosen in November by a panel of rugby personalities and a public vote through social media. On the pitch, with two representatives from South America competing at Rugby World Cup 2015, interest was always going to be huge. Uruguay failed to win in the so-called ‘Pool of Death’ but learned plenty from their participation, while Argentina captured the imagination by reaching the semi-finals.Earlier in the year, Los Teritos confirmed that the future is bright in Uruguay with third place at the World Rugby U20 Trophy in Portugal, while neighbours Argentina finished ninth in the U20 Championship in Italy. Regional competitions continued to prove successful in 2015. Argentina won the CONSUR Cup at senior and U19 level, with three nations celebrating South American Championships: Chile (Senior A), Colombia (Senior B and U19 B) RUGBY BLOSSOMS IN HISTORIC YEAR FOR SOUTH AMERICAABOVE Colombia’s women’s sevens team qualified for Rio 2016 in thrilling styleBELOW Copacabana Beach opened its first beach rugby field in June 2015An historic year for rugby in South America saw the regional association become known as Sudamérica Rugby to align with the rebranding of World Rugby. and Uruguay (U19 A). In Santa Fe in June, hosts Argentina (men) and Colombia (women) qualified for Rio 2016. While it was expected that Argentina would dominate the regional qualifier as they did, Colombia’s women surprised Argentina with a last-gasp try to qualify for rugby’s Olympic Games return. This was one of the biggest sporting stories of the year in Colombia and they will join Brazil’s men and women at Rio 2016.Rio is hastily preparing for the Games. World Rugby is working with the CBRu (Confederação Brasileira de Rugby) and the Transforma Agency in Rio to implement our Impact Beyond children introduced to rugby in Brazil in 2015168,000programme which now has more than 100,000 children participating in rugby. In June, the world-famous Copacabana Beach also opened its first beach rugby field with Rio 2016 officials joined at the opening by World Rugby Chairman Bernard Lapasset and Chief Executive Brett Gosper.This is helping to raise the profile of rugby in Brazil with figures showing that 480 PE teachers have been trained and 168,000 children have been introduced to rugby in Brazil in 2015.AROUND THE REGIONS | INSPIRING PARTICIPATION