Canadian women's road to Olympics gets clearer despite losses to New Zealand at Hong Kong 7s

The Australian and the U.S. women's rugby sevens teams secured qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday by reaching the quarterfinals of the HSBC Hong Kong Sevens.

Both teams now have enough points to ensure they cannot fall out of the top four places in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series overall standings, which carry automatic Olympic qualification. The women have one more tournament left this season — May 12-14 in Toulouse, France — after Hong Kong.

The U.S. Olympic qualification is actually good news for the Canadian women, who now won't have to battle their North American rivals for the one Paris berth up for grabs at the regional Olympic qualifier in Langford, B.C., in August.

That produced a quarterfinal rematch Saturday with the Black Ferns — and another loss, this time 45-14. New Zealand led 28-0 at halftime en route to a seven-try performance. Chloe Daniels and Taejah Thompson scored tries for Canada which suffered its 20th straight defeat at the hands of the New Zealand women.

Canada faces the third-ranked U.S. in the fifth-place semifinal.

New Zealand, which tops the women's standings after five straight podium finishes including wins at the last four tournaments, had already qualified for Paris. France currently stands fourth, ahead of Ireland.

Australia won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics where the Canadian women earned bronze. Canada was ninth at the Tokyo Olympics.

WATCH | Women's World Rugby Sevens Series Hong Kong: Canada vs. New Zealand:

On the men's side, the 14th-ranked Canadians finished last in a very tough Pool A after losses to No. 2 Argentina (17-7), No. 4 Fiji (40-7) and No. 6 Samoa (29-5). They face No. 8 Ireland on Sunday in the ninth-place semifinal.

Will Percillier scored his