Eight years ago, Charlotte Caslick created a moment that changed Australian rugby forever.
Flying across the pitch in cover defence and smashing United States flyer Victoria Folayan into touch, saving a try in the process, Caslick then flicked her iconic braids and ribbons back over her shoulders before preparing to go again. It was the ultimate symbol of femininity and power coming together.
Then just 21, she would become the face of women's rugby in Australia, having inspired thousands of young girls -- boys, too -- who watched one of the iconic green-and-gold images from the Rio Olympics live back in Australia.
Standing atop the podium at the 2016 Rio Olympics with a gold medal propped around her neck alongside her famous pigtail braids and gold ribbons, the Queenslander had started a women's sevens revolution around the country. It was "the Caslick Effect".
Within months, you couldn't walk past a rugby pitch in Australia without spotting countless braided pigtails. Young girls picked up the rugby ball in droves never seen previously as women's rugby sevens, as well as fifteens, competitions exploded across the country.
According to Rugby Australia [RA], female sevens participation grew by 33% after that iconic Olympic moment, with it expanding a further 50% since 2016; women's fifteens participation has more than tripled since 2016.
The growth spawned the creation of the AON Uni 7s series, while several players in the current national sevens team were inspired by Rio to pick up the rugby ball for the first time. It speaks volumes to the impact Caslick and the 'Golden Girls' from Rio have had on the sport in Australia, and, according to some of her closest teammates, it's a responsibility she doesn't take lightly.
"For all of us post-Rio, that's probably the proudest part," former teammate Alicia Lucas, née Quirk, told ESPN.
"The fact that something that we wanted to selfishly achieve in terms of winning a gold medal, to represent our country at the Olympics, so many people got such joy in that moment, and that it also inspired so many boys and girls to want to take up sevens and want to dress as Charlotte Caslick, wanted to have head gear like Sharni Williams, or they wanted to throw the ball like Alicia Quirk.
"It was incredible that what we were doing in terms of just playing footy became such a shift in the momentum around women's sport, around rugby in Australia. It was pretty special to be a part of.
"I know Charlotte became the face of that because she had such an incredible tournament in Rio, and for once we were on free-to-air TV; so when young boys and girls were brushing their teeth in the morning, they saw a young girl wearing braids and ribbons smash another girl from the USA over the sideline, stand up, flick her hair back, and carry on with the job.
"Those pigtails, we saw it for years and years and years; in the stands when we played at home, in photos that fans sent through, at young girls clinics that we did, it was incredible that that was all part of the Rio movement and the Golden Girls era.
"I know she doesn't take that responsibility lightly at all. She loves rugby so much and everything that it's given her, and she really wants everyone to be the next Charlotte Caslick if that's what they want to do and chase their dreams in that regard."
A teammate of Caslick's for 10 years, Sharni Smale, née Williams, has seen first-hand the Australia playmaker's incredible rise from a touch football player into someone she describes as the ultimate competitor and "the Queen of Sevens".
"It's pretty special to be able to be alongside Charlotte for 10 years now, and she just epitomises everything that rugby sevens is," Smale told ESPN ahead of the team's departure for the Paris Olympics.
"You can't forget that Rio moment where she tackled that American [Folayan] over the sideline with the double braids, and she just flicked them back. She didn't go out there to say, 'this is who I am', but it is who she is, and it's what young girls should aspire to be.
"She dies for the cause. She's a competitor that is just hungry to win, and it doesn't matter what it is, she'll get in there and really have a go. I don't think there's anybody else like her that I've ever played with or met.
"People can see her as the face, and there can be some jealousy from a lot of people, but what she does and how she holds herself for this sport is something that is really hard to explain because she's like the queen, the queen of sevens, and I'm so proud of how far she's come and where she is now."
Incredibly, Caslick's braids and ribbons began as a protest against a World Rugby referee and all the people who had doubted her physicality along her journey.
"We had been told for such a long period of time in our career, both Charlotte and I, that we were too soft, we were too girly," Lucas told ESPN.
"Charlotte got asked by the referee so many times to cut her hair off. That's where the braids came from. We were playing a tournament in Atlanta and a referee from World Rugby told us that we needed to chop our ponytails off because they were covering our numbers, and they can't see them. And like never in their right mind would they ever tell a male to cut their hair to play and so that sort of where it came from.
"But I think creating that change in mindset that we can be feminine and fit and fast, and also be fierce, strong and powerful -- something that we were told that we weren't -- we were able to show people that we were in our own unique way. That's why the moment sticks with so many people.
"It's a pretty cool memory to have in terms of shifting perspective and her being the figurehead of that."
Eight years on from Rio, as Caslick prepares to contest her third Olympics, the 29-year-old continues to lead the way for the Australian women's team as well as women's rugby in Australia.
As well as taking on the captaincy role last year, she also became the most-capped women's sevens player in history, running out for her 50th series tournament in February, before she became the first Australian, in April, to score 150 tries on the world SVNS circuit. Incredibly, Caslick's performances on the field continue to improve, clocking the fastest time of her life during the final SVNS series tournament in Madrid in June.
"It's astonishing to see how she's been able to preserve her body relatively injury free throughout her career and -- a bit like Sharni -- she's becoming like a fine wine; she's getting better and better as she gets older and smarter," Lucas told ESPN.
"Like any career it's had ebbs and flows, but she's the ultra-competitor and she holds herself to such high standards, and that was something that we instilled from the get-go, and she will always hold the team accountable to those standards.
"The biggest thing for me is the confidence that she is portraying in her own game, and backing herself is really helping those young girls shine as well... not in any arrogant fashion, but just believing in themselves and believing what they're capable of and knowing that they've done the hard work.
"But the fact that she's now, at 29, hitting some of her fastest speeds, she knows when to turn it on and she knows when to push. When the big moments matter, she does the hard work for it."
After plummeting to the depths of their shock fifth-place exit at the 2020 Tokyo Games, Caslick has been at the centre of the revitalistion of the team's 'sisterhood' as the group welcomed the next generation of stars such as Maddi and Teagan Levi, Maddi Ashby, Bienne Terita, Faith Nathan and Sariah Paki. Within a year, the bounce back was complete as the team celebrated making history with a historic triple crown -- winning the Rugby Sevens World Cup, Commonwealth Games gold, and the World Series in one season.
For many of her young teammates such as Bella Nasser, who followed Caslick's footsteps all the way from attending the same Brisbane State High School where she witnessed the Rio gold moment, to Ruby Nicholas, who made her Australian sevens debut earlier this year, Caslick has played an integral part in their journey to the gold jersey.
"I was playing with boys when they won gold in Rio and it definitely became a big influence for me," Nicholas told ESPN. "For the first time I had female role models in rugby and it definitely made me keep going and gave me motivation to play sevens.
"[Caslick] was someone I definitely aspired to be. She's a ballplayer and is definitely the greatest of all time, and I wanted to emulate her. She's a good person to look up to. She works really hard; she just goes 100% in everything she does, and is constantly lifting her game -- which constantly lifts everyone else up with her.
"When I was debuting, she helped reassure me in my position and gave me little tips here and there. She was really great at helping calm the nerves and just gave me little pointers here and there. She's so good at always making you feel welcome, and so supportive in both the highs and the lows. Not just congratulating us on highs but being there when something doesn't go our way.
"We are a sisterhood, we call each other 'sister' just here and there, but it's also the feeling that everyone has my back and it doesn't need to be said; we all just know it and all pride ourselves on and off the field, that it's just like mistake or not, everyone knows that everyone has each other's back and will support each other through anything and Charlotte's been a massive part of that."
While the pigtails and ribbons are long gone, the Caslick Effect continues with the Aussie star preparing to inspire yet another group of young girls and boys when the team runs out at Stade de France in Paris on July 29.
"Charlotte's grown from that, and I think she's evolved," Smale told ESPN when asked about the pigtails making a return. "She's rewriting her story over and over each year,, and I hope that other people will evolve with her as well.
"She's a trendsetter. I just love how much she loves herself as well, and is just willing to get out there and just show everyone that just be yourself, and that dreams can come true.
"I've probably learned a lot from her as well. Tokyo [Olympics] I wore my rainbow headgear, and she embraced me through that. It's a strong bond that we have. But it's her support that means everything to everyone in this team.
"She's always so well spoken, she's a fierce competitor. She says it how it is. I think that there was no turning back from her being that leader.
"She's unapologetically herself, she's 100% her authentic self."
Alicia Lucas will appear as a rugby sevens expert on Stan Sport's Olympics Daily and Paris Preview shows throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.