STAR Wagga athlete Alicia Quirk has set her sights on history as she prepares for the biggest year of her life.
Quirk is home in Wagga for a week to spend Christmas with family before she sets herself for a campaign aimed at the Rio Olympics.
Quirk is a member of the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens squad that have already qualified for next year’s Rio Olympics with the 23-year-old only needing to survive the cut to 14 to book her spot on the plane.
“It’s going to be a massive year,” Quirk said.
“You dream about the opportunity to go to the Olympics as a young kid and for it now to be only 227 days away, it’s going to be very exciting.
“Everything that happens moving forward is going to be all revolved and based around the Olympics.
“I’m obviously very nervous but also so excited to have this opportunity to be apart of creating history for women’s sevens and my own sporting history as well.”
Quirk starred at fly-half in Australia’s win in the Dubai Sevens earlier this month.
They will play three games against Ireland in Sydney in February, before heading to Sao Paulo and Rio to help familiarise themselves for later in the year.
A tournament in the last weekend in May will be the last chance to push for selection before the squad for Rio is announced.
Quirk is fully prepared for such a big year ahead.
“Because I dream about it and talk about it so often it’s kind of more a reality than such a far fetched idea,” she said.
“Because it’s such a focus for us, we know it’’s going to be a reality...our destiny that’s going to happen kind of thing.
“Because we qualified such a long time ago in May, that was kind of more a relief and that reality sunk in then that we’re finally going.
“Now it’s doing everything I can individually to make sure that when the team gets selected that I’m on that plane in the end of July.”
While respectful of world champions New Zealand, Quirk wants gold.
“We wouldn’t call ourself the favourite but we’re saying (gold’s) our goal and that’s what we’re trying to achieve.”
