Rugby Star's Battered Silver Medal Drove Her to Olympic Gold

When Olympic gold medallist Ruby Tui looks at her beat-up silver medal from 2016, she doesn't see failure. She sees every lesson that carried her to the top of the podium five years later.

After losing the Rio Games rugby sevens final to Australia, Tui returned to New Zealand heartbroken. But instead of hiding her disappointment, she visited every school she could and let kids hold her silver medal.

The heavy medal got dropped countless times. It collected scratches, dings, and dents until it looked, in Tui's words, "rubbish."

But each imperfection became meaningful. "It's not about how many times you fall over, it's what you do when you get up," she told the South China Morning Post.

Inspired by UFC fighter Ronda Rousey's goal to "win every match twice on my worst day," Tui and her Black Ferns teammates poured everything into their preparation for Tokyo 2021. They faced fierce competition in the semi-finals from Fiji, who Tui said were "like playing RoboCop" after training together for four months.

The system worked. New Zealand claimed gold in Tokyo, and Tui finally got her "super shiny" medal that made her "feel like a pirate."

Why This Inspires

Tui's journey shows how reframing setbacks can fuel success. Her battered silver medal could have sat in a drawer as a reminder of defeat, but she transformed it into a teaching tool for thousands of children and herself.

The momentum continued. In 2022, Tui helped New Zealand win the Women's Rugby World Cup, dramatically ending England's 30-match winning streak in front of more than 42,000 fans at Eden Park in Auckland.

Now 34, Tui serves as an HSBC ambassador and continues sharing her message: honest conversations, solid systems, and resilience write your story.

Her scratched-up silver medal still holds a place of honor, proof that sometimes our most valuable treasures are the ones that show their scars.