Rugby World Cup whistles to be delivered by cyclists, peddling from Tokyo to Auckland and Paris on ‘power of made up mind’
- Ron Rutland cycled from London to Tokyo to deliver the 2019 Rugby World Cup whistle, and is doing the same again
- Rutland has been nominated for the ‘21st Century Adventurer’ award by the European Outdoor Film Tour
Ron Rutland and Adam Nunn will pick up the Rugby World Cup whistles in Tokyo and deliver them to the women’s and men’s tournaments in Auckland and Paris respectively. Sounds simple enough, until you realise they will make their deliveries by bicycle.
The pair will collect the whistles in Tokyo, the site of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, then travel by bike through Japan, take a ferry to Korea and cycle to Seoul. They are unable to enter China because of Covid-19 restrictions, so they will fly to Hanoi.
Then they will cycle through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, island hop across Indonesia, take a ferry to Darwin and cycle to Sydney. If time and budget allows, they will go to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, then New Zealand, for the start of the women’s Rugby World Cup on October 8.
“You’ve just got to start. There’s always a reason to put it off, you are never perfectly fit, you never have all the sponsors. Eventually you have to put a line in the sand and commit. There is the power of the made up mind,” Rutland said. “We’ll get to Japan. By hook or by crook we’ll get to Auckland, maybe not the way we planned, but we’ll get there.”
They will pick up their next whistle and the pair will fly to South America, and cycle north through South and North America, fly across to Iceland, then the UK, then cycle to Paris for the men’s tournament, starting in October 2023.
The men’s tournament has always had a commemorative whistle. This is the first time World Rugby have made one for the women’s tournament, and it is because of Rutland and Nunn’s adventure.