| Date of birth | December 27, 1995 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Place of birth | Cape Town, South Africa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Sarah Levy ( /ˈliːvi/ LEE-vee; born December 27, 1995) [2] is an American rugby union and rugby sevens player. She plays the wing position in the fifteens, and plays the positions of hooker, winger, centre, or prop in the sevens. [3] [4] At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Levy competed in the women's rugby sevens tournament on the bronze medal–winning United States team.
Levy was born in Cape Town, South Africa, the daughter of a father from South Africa (Denis Levy) and mother from the United States (Susan), and is Jewish. [5] [6] [7] Her father played rugby, and her great-uncle played rugby for the South African rugby union team Western Province. [1] [8] Her paternal great-grandfather Louis Babrow, who was an opponent of South African apartheid, played for the South Africa national rugby union team (the Springboks) in the 1930s, and was one of the first Jewish players to do so. [8] [1] [6]
Levy and her family made aliyah and moved to Israel when she was two, and a few years later moved to San Diego, California. [6] [3] [8] She went to pre-school at the San Diego JCC, attended a San Diego synagogue, and went to a Jewish Community Center camp. [7] [9] She competed in soccer at the 2010 and 2012 JCC Maccabi Games. [7] She celebrated her bat mitzvah in Israel. [9] In high school, she ran cross country and track, and competed in golf and soccer. [1]
In 2014, as a student of University City High School in San Diego, Levy was part of the March of the Living Western Region Delegation, visiting Poland and Israel. In her diary on April 29, 2014, after visiting the Belzec Death Camp memorial, where approx. 500,000 Jews were murdered, Levy wrote, "The monument we just visited was not like any I'd seen back home. The single passageway and looming walls created an overwhelming experience. All the Jews that arrived at this camp were killed, except for just one. All Jews. All the same fate. No other option. The huge walls in a narrow passageway made me feel the same sense of helplessness. None of my friends could ever understand the emotional journey on this trip, which made me feel alone, but the people with me on this trip created a loving community and helped me through this incredible experience every day.” [10] [11]
Levy attended Northeastern University, and graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Health Science. [3] [1] She then earned a doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2023 at the University of Saint Augustines in San Marcos, California. [3] [12] She spent a year working for a Connecticut physical therapy clinic. [1] [7]
Levy first played rugby when she was 18 years of age at Northeastern University, for whom she played rugby union and rugby sevens. [3] [1] [8] She competed for the San Diego Surfers and the New York Rugby Club (the oldest rugby club in the nation) rugby union clubs of the Women's Premier League. [6] [3] She also played for the British-based invitational Barbarians F.C, for which her great-grandfather had also played. [8] [13] [14]
In 2018, Levy was asked to play for USA Rugby's fifteens team, the USA Women's Eagles. [1] [3] She earned her first cap against England. [3]
She switched to rugby sevens after she was asked to play for the U.S. sevens camp. Although she plays the wing position in the fifteens, she plays the positions of hooker, winger, centre, or prop in the sevens. [3] [1] [8] In 2022, she was asked to join the USA Sevens Residency, and she debuted in the 2022 World Rugby Sevens Series in Malaga, Spain. [3] [8] That year she also began working with coach Zack Test, who is a past Olympian and was the national team's assistant coach. [9]
Levy competed at the 2024 Paris Olympics as part of the United States women's national rugby sevens team in the women's rugby sevens tournament, in July 2024. [3] [15] [5] At the time, Team USA was fourth in the world rankings. [1] The team won its first two matches, defeating Japan and Brazil, and qualified for the quarter-finals, with Levy scoring in her first match. [16] The team went on to win the bronze medal. [17]
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