News Teams from Africa, North America, Europe and Oceania have already qualified for the rugby sevens tournament at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games – now it is time for a little South American flavour to be added The continental championships will kick off in Santa Fé, Argentina, on Friday (5 June) and the winners of the men’s and women’s titles, who will be known by Sunday (7 June), will earn their places at the first Olympic Games in South America Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru will contest the men’s tournament, while the same seven plus Costa Rica will compete in the women’s event Brazil will not participate, having already been guaranteed places in both Olympic tournaments as host nation Argentina will be favourites to qualify for Rio in both genders, especially without the Brazilian women’s team – which has won every previous edition of the tournament – to challenge them In both the men’s and women’s events, all the teams will play each other in a round-robin format, with the side that finishes top of the table qualifying for Rio 2016 The second and third-placed teams will get another chance at a global repechage tournament in 2016, after all the regional tournaments have been played Los Pumas, as the Argentina men’s team are known, will feature four current full internationals – all of them with ample previous experience in the seven-a-side game – Javier Ortega Desio, Jerónimo de la Fuente, Javier Rojas and speedy wing Santiago Cordero For coach and former player Santiago Gómez Cora, the target is simple “This year was all about finding options and growing in the way we want to play, but now we only have one goal and that is to secure the ticket to Rio,” he said However, the Chilean team, fresh from a tour of Spain, aim to ensure that Argentina do not have it all their way “We acknowledge that Argentina is the team to beat, but we’ll go out with the intention of qualifying directly,” said coach Edmundo Olfos “A second option is through the repechage, but we don’t want to look beyond Santa Fe at the moment ” Uruguay, the 2012 champions, should also pose a challenge to the host nation Whoever is triumphant will join Brazil, Fiji, South Africa, New Zealand and Great Britain in Rio, the latter four having qualified last month by finishing in the top four places in the Sevens World Series With Brazil’s absence in the women’s tournament, Argentina’s biggest rival is likely to be Colombia The two nations have shared the silver medals since 2005 Uruguay and Chile are also expected to be strong As well as Brazil, the victors will join New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Great Britain, who confirmed their last month by finishing in the top four places in the Sevens World Series The remaining places in the Rio 2016 men’s and women’s rugby tournaments will be filled by the winners of the other five continental championships, to be staged in the second half of 2015, and the international repechage tournament next year Qualifying for the Olympic and Paralympic Games is a continual process and the final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games) Places are recommended by national federations or the sporting organisations of each country and its respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee, who will decide the final places