Nathan Hirayama (born 23 March 1988) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

former

rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

player. His primary position was fly-half, however, but he also played fullback. He played for both the Canadian national team and the Canadian sevens team. At club level, Hirayama played for the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

in the British Columbian Premiership and the

BC Bears The British Columbia Bears (formerly Pacific Tyee) are the senior men's representative rugby team for British Columbia. They were founded in 2009 to compete in the Americas Rugby Championship against other representative teams from Canada, Argenti ...

in the

Canadian Rugby Championship The Canadian Rugby Championship (CRC) (french: Championnat provincial du Canada de rugby à XV) was a Canadian amateur rugby union competition, partially funded by the World Rugby. It was the highest level of men's domestic rugby in Canada. Four r ...

National team

Fifteens

Hirayama was selected for the Canadian national team to attend the

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and

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Rugby World Cup The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb E ...

s, although he did not play any games in 2007. He appeared as a substitute two of Canada's four 2011 World Cup group stage matches. He was Canada's starting fly-half for the 2015 World Cup, playing in all four group stage matches and recording 20 points.

Sevens

Hirayama debuted for the Canadian sevens team in the

2006 Dubai Sevens The Dubai Sevens is played annually as part of the IRB Sevens World Series for international rugby sevens (seven-a-side version of rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at R ...

in the

IRB Sevens World Series The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...

at age 18. Two years later he debuted for the Canadian national men's team against

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. He was selected for the

2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens was the sixth edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens. The tournament was held at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. New Zealand won the tournament, defeating England 33–0 in the final. Attendance for the tourname ...

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helping Canada to win the Plate competition and finishing as the tournament's top scorer with 49 points. Hirayama was a part of Canada's rugby sevens team at the

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, and

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Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

. Hirayama has also competed at the

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is held ...

, winning gold in 2011 and 2015, and silver in 2019. In June 2021, Hirayama was named to Canada's 2020 Summer Olympics team. He will be Canada's flag-bearer at the opening ceremony games alongside

Miranda Ayim Miranda Joy Ayim (born May 6, 1988) is a Canadian basketball player for Basket Landes in France. Ayim is a captain of the Canada women's national team and competed for Canada in three Olympics between 2012 and 2021. High school Ayim attended hig ...

. He announced his retirement from all forms of rugby in September 2021. At the time of his retirement, he was ranked third on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series all-time points-scoring list, with 1859 total points.

Personal life

Hirayama is of

Japanese Canadian are Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Canadians are mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially in the province of British Columbia, which hosts the largest Japanese community in the country with the majority of them living ...

descent and was born in Richmond, British Columbia, as were both his parents. Hirayama's father, Garry Hirayama, also represented Canada in both codes of the game in the 1980s, winning 12 caps as fly-half for the national team, and was also part of Canada's first sevens team to travel to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. Together they are the first-ever rugby-playing father-son duo for Canada.

References

External links

Nathan Hirayama
at

Rugby Canada Rugby Canada is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in Canada. Rugby Canada was incorporated in 1974, and stems from the Canadian Rugby Football Union, a body established in 1884 that now governs amateur Canadian football a ...

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirayama, Nathan 1988 births Living people Canada international rugby union players Canadian rugby union players Commonwealth Games rugby sevens players of Canada Canada international rugby sevens players Rugby sevens players at the 2015 Pan American Games Rugby union fullbacks Rugby union fly-halves People from Richmond, British Columbia Sportspeople from British Columbia Canadian sportspeople of Japanese descent Pan American Games gold medalists for Canada Pan American Games medalists in rugby sevens Rugby sevens players at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Rugby sevens players at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Rugby sevens players at the 2019 Pan American Games Medalists at the 2015 Pan American Games Medalists at the 2019 Pan American Games Rugby sevens players at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic rugby sevens players of Canada Victoria Vikes athletes