PARIS: Defending champions New Zealand face the USA in the semi-finals of the Olympic sevens tournament, but French hopes of double rugby gold were dashed after defeat to Canada at the Stade de France on Monday.
Another partisan, near-capacity crowd of 66,000 crammed into the Stade de France, primarily to watch the French team on their mission to emulate Antoine Dupont and the men's team and win gold.
But the disappointment was great when the Canadians won 19:14 and secured their place in the semi-final against Australia.
The Australians outclassed Ireland 40-7 in their quarter, with Maddison Levi scoring a hat-trick to set a new women's record of 11 tries scored at an Olympic Games, beating the previous record of 10 set by Portia Woodman-Wickliffe at the 2016 Rio Games.
Piper Logan opened the scoring for Canada in their match against France, charging out of a scrum and scoring a beautiful individual try that Chloe Daniels converted.
But the home team, cheered on by a cheering crowd, equalised at half-time when Ian Jason scored a try.
Yolaine Yengo converted this and her own try to take the lead after a brilliant clearance from Lili Dezou following a double tackle.
But Logan got her second identical try, which captain Olivia Apps converted with three minutes to go to increase the lead to 14 points.
Daniels dashed France's hopes when she sank an unguarded blindside ball on Canada's third attempt.
New Zealand, gold medalists at the Covid-postponed 2021 Tokyo Olympics, won comfortably 55-5 against China and will now play against the USA, who beat Great Britain 17-7.
They were on the scoreboard within 30 seconds when the experienced Sarah Hirini converted a counterattack by Theresa Setefano.
But China hit back, with Yang Feifei marching down the line and waving. When Hirini was shown a yellow card for a head-high tackle, the Chinese took advantage of their numerical superiority as Hu Yu outran the stretched defence to score a try.
However, New Zealand did not panic and scored eight tries without conceding.
With five points each, Jazmin Felix-Hotham, Michaela Blyde and world rugby legend Woodman-Wickliffe ensured a half-time score of 24:5 at their third and final Olympic Games.
Blyde scored her seventh try of the tournament early in the second period, immediately followed by four more from Felix-Hotham, Mahina Paul (2) and Hirini in what turned out to be a procession.
New Zealand's rivals across the Tasman Sea, Australia, winners of the 2016 Rio Olympics, made a strong start against Ireland.
Levi scored a first-half hat-trick in a replay of the two teams' last group match, which the Australians won 19-14 on Monday.
Faith Nathan increased the lead to 26-0 at half-time before Isabella Nasser and Bienne Terita scored two more goals before and after Ireland's consolation goal by Stacey Flood.
Great Britain took the lead in its quarter through Ellie Boatman, the USA responded through Naya Tapper after a strong counterattack by TikTok star Ilona Maher.
Shortly before halftime, it looked as if Maher could have scored the second goal for the USA, but an outstanding tackle from Jasmine Joyce denied her.
However, Kristi Kirche scored the Americans' second goal early in the second half, followed by Sammy Sullivan, ending Britain's medal hopes and giving the USA a place in the last four for the first time.
In the play-offs for the lower places, Brazil recorded a memorable 28-22 victory over Fiji, which had won bronze at the Tokyo Games.
Raquel Kochhann scored four tries, including a stoppage-time winner, with a swerve and a sprint from her own line, setting up a play-off against Japan for ninth place.
