Date of birth | October 6, 1992 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Height | 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 62 kg (137 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Natasha Shangwe Olson-Thorne (born 6 October 1992) is a Hong Kong rugby union player. She represented Hong Kong at the 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup in Ireland, Hong Kong's first World Cup appearance. Olson-Thorne created history when she scored Hong Kong's first World Cup try in their match against Wales.[1][2]
Olson-Thorne began playing rugby at the age of 15 while attending Sha Tin College.[3] She made her international debut for the Hong Kong women's national rugby union team in 2010.[3][4] She then made her sevens debut at the 2011 Hong Kong Women's Sevens.[5][4][3]
In 2015 she graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor of Science in Exercise and Health.[3][4] She captained the sevens team for the first time at the 2016 Hong Kong Women's Sevens, it was her sixth appearance at the tournament.[3] Olson-Thorne was also in the sevens team vying for a spot at the 2016 Summer Olympics via a repechage tournament in Dublin.[6] She was in the 2021 sevens squad that 'narrowly' missed their chance to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.[7]
She co-captained the Hong Kong sevens team at the 2021 Asia Women's Sevens Series, it was a qualifier event for the 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens.[8][9] However, they lost to Japan in the semifinal and missed their chance.[10]
Olson-Thorne was named in the fifteens squad that played in a two-test series against Kazakhstan in December 2022.[11][12][13]