The dark side of Ben Ryan’s Fijian Olympic dream: how a missing friend helps put ‘Sevens Heaven’ on list for rugby book of year
- The Rio gold-winning coach blamed himself for what happened to his childhood friend but he now realises it wasn’t his fault
- Ryan and Tom Fordyce’s book is among the candidates for the 2019 Telegraph Rugby Book of the Year Award
Ben Ryan’s Fiji Olympic story is firmly entrenched in folklore, whether you’ve read the former coach’s book or not. But when he sat down to talk about his journey with ghostwriter Tom Fordyce, there was another, darker tale that had tortured his soul for many years.
The book, Sevens Heaven: The Beautiful Chaos of Fiji’s Olympic Dream, was on Tuesday nominated for the Rugby Book of the Year prize in The Telegraph Sports Book Awards. And between the pages of Fiji elation are shards of heartbreak and remorse.
The story perfectly captures Fiji’s emotional roller coaster to Rio gold, which spawned a euphoria that swept over the tiny Pacific nation. For Ryan, though, the swell in his heart was filled as much with despair and guilt as it was with the joy of fulfilling a dream of a people he had come to love.
The source of his pain was his childhood friend Noel, who grew up with Ryan, played rugby and football with him and shared visions of grandeur. But their paths – running parallel for so many years – diverged. Noel got involved with the wrong people, spent time in jail and now his whereabouts are unknown. Ryan blamed himself.
Fiji’s Olympic odyssey – itself filled with heart-warming stories of triumph over adversity – dominates the book and from page one it takes the reader on a feel-good ride that reaches its anticipated crescendo.