RIO DE JANEIRO -- With the deftest of kicks, Spain's Patricia Garcia etched her name in history as the player who officially signalled rugby's return to the Olympic Games after a 92-year hiatus. Rugby has arrived at the Olympics, but the women's sport cannot afford to miss this opportunity to grow the game worldwide.
On Friday, Bill Beaumont, chairman of World Rugby, labelled sevens' introduction into the Olympics as a "game-changer". Brazil had a lot to live up to.
The opening day at the Deodoro Stadium did its best to play up to sevens' reputation as a sport anchored on entertainment both on and off the field. Songs in the charts and those tunes more arrowed on a mass drink-swaying sing-along boomed out of the PA system even before spectators were allowed into the stands. Once they'd traipsed in, with the stadium two-thirds full, a camera panned around the stadium spotting fans dancing to the various beats, all attempting to wear as little clothing as possible under the beating sun.
Athletes before and after they played were either soaking up the rays in the stands or walking around the ground's confines, talking on phones to friends and family back home or catching up with players from other nations.
And all the time a crocodile -- now unofficially named ruckadile -- swam along the Rio Pavuna.
It was welcoming, unique, friendly and fun -- the perfect cocktail for attracting new followers and players of the sport but now comes the challenge to grasp this opportunity and use it to inspire future generations.
Brazil already have the perfect athlete to inspire a new following: the brilliant, diminutive, electric Edna Santini. Standing at just 1.50m, she slips under flailing arms and has the pace to exploit any wayward positioning. It's the type of raw ability that causes folk to involuntarily leap from their seats in expectation. She has the star quality to become a continent-wide face for the sport but below this squad in the Olympics, the signs are optimistic.
The legacy planning in this part of the world seems sound. Dotted around the stadium were various rugby-focused charity projects; one was Instituto Rugby Para Todos whose mission is to "promote the education of children through the principles of rugby". Inspire the young, eager-eyed children and you have a foundation.
And then there is World Rugby's IMPACT Beyond Rio programme, which was instigated in March 2015 reaching 175,000 players, coaches and young match officials.
But that's just Brazil. World Rugby's vice-chairman, Argentina-born Agustin Pichot, wants to see the ripple effect of rugby in the Games carry to the other Latin America countries with Colombia's qualification for the women's tournament a key catalyst in growing the game there while Argentina are already established as one of rugby's power-houses.
But this talk of legacy is not just of Latin American importance. The USA has huge room to grow and they have the infrastructure and playing pool to become one of the world's top sides in both men's and women's rugby but they need to start producing the goods on the field to get wider exposure. And then at the other end of the scale in terms of financial resources are Fiji.
While the men's Fiji side are favourites to win the tournament, the women are less fancied but theirs is an inspirational story that needs to be told.
In a country that has never won an Olympic medal, Fiji are daring to dream of their prospects here in Rio and if Fiji's women end up medalling then it will be one of the most remarkable stories to emanate from the sport in recent times.
The brilliant Litia Naiqato used to baffle her coaches. She was their fittest player but was tailing off in training sessions; only after looking into her circumstances did Chris Cracknell, Fiji women's head coach, find that she was running five miles to catch the bus in the morning to training and then five miles back in the evening. She was exhausted. Then Cyclone Winston struck in February and her village was obliterated. Yet here she is in Rio playing in a team that has three players under 18, five who have played the sport less than a year and Raijieli Daveau who played netball for Fiji with the Olympics her first ever rugby tournament.
They don't use GPS equipment, instead they utilise the natural facilities available in Fiji such as their Sigatoka sand dunes. Regardless of whether they medal, they are here, beating the USA because of natural ability, good coaching and a love for the sport.
On such tales, future generations can be inspired.
Beaumont wants clubs worldwide to be "inundated" with new players after the Games, looking to play both 15s and sevens. Furthermore, he hopes those clubs who play the traditional 15s will look to sevens and see an opportunity to offer an easier pathway into the sport.
The women's game has the potential to take rugby away from the traditional powerhouses and develop a sport with worldwide appeal. Get this opportunity right, grasp the legacy and having the sport in the Olympics will prove to be that game-changer for the women's rugby.