{"id":42230,"date":"2020-12-04T14:59:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T14:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=42230"},"modified":"2020-12-04T14:59:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T14:59:53","slug":"interview-with-england-rugby-sevens-star-alex-matthews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/interview-with-england-rugby-sevens-star-alex-matthews\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: England sevens star Alex Matthews on Tokyo 2020, didi Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>On the morning of her 27th birthday, Alex Matthews logged onto Zoom for a weekly catch up session with her team. Nothing could have prepared her for the heartbreaking news that followed:\u00a0<\/strong><strong>the budget for the England Rugby sevens had been cut, pushing her dream of competing at Tokyo 2020 even further away.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Rugby Football Union (RFU) faced losses of up to\u00a0\u00a3107 million due to the coronavirus pandemic and, in August, made the decision to cut the both the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s rugby sevens programme due to financial difficulties.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/englands-rugby-sevens-lost-their-funding-can-they-save-their-olympic-dream\/\">&#8211;\u00a0England\u2019s rugby sevens lost their funding. Can they save their Olympic dream?<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/lockdown-impacted-everyone-but-womens-sport-paid-a-higher-price\/\">&#8211; Lockdown impacted everyone, but women\u2019s sport paid a higher price<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With the World Seven&#8217;s Series immobile since the beginning of March, members of England&#8217;s squad have been seeking opportunities elsewhere. For Matthews, that has meant returning to the traditional 15-a-side format of the game, as well as a return to the England women&#8217;s rugby union side, known as the Red Roses.<\/p>\n<p>Adapting to a new normal has been tough. The previously well-funded Team GB seven&#8217;s sides have had to look elsewhere if they want to make it to the Olympics in Tokyo. Banding together, the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s teams have taken it into their own hands by launching a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pledgesports.org\/projects\/england-rugby-sevens-road-to-tokyo\/\">crowdfunding campaign<\/a> to support their journey towards Tokyo 2021, setting a goal of approximately \u00a32 million.<\/p>\n<p>Not being able to play for her country, and being left without a contract, Matthews speaks to the Voice of London on how she coped with it all.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Interview with women&#039;s Rugby sevens star Alex Matthews by Voice of London\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F941336458&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=750&#038;maxwidth=500\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_43467\" style=\"width: 420px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/interview-with-england-rugby-sevens-star-alex-matthews\/alex-matthews\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-43467\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43467\" class=\"size-large wp-image-43467\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2020\/12\/alex-matthews-410x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"410\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-43467\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fact Box: Alex Matthews. Infographic by Arwa Nadeem. Images: @a.matthews06 via Instagram. Facts via England Rugby.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Words &amp; Audio: Arwa Nadeem | Subbing: Connor O&#8217;Halloran<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the morning of her 27th birthday, Alex Matthews logged onto Zoom for a weekly catch up session with her team. Nothing could have prepared her for the heartbreaking news that followed:\u00a0the budget for the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":42569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[2120,5362,6377],"class_list":["post-42230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-england-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-tokyo-2020"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}