Scotland may be the birthplace of sevens rugby, but Hong Kong has long been its spiritual home. So it was only fitting that the second Rugby World Cup Sevens was held there in 1997 - the 21st year of the prestigious Hong Kong Sevens.
Three nations qualified automatically - defending champions England, runners-up Australia and the hosts - with 64 others taking part in three qualifying tournaments held in Lisbon, Dubai and Punta del Este to determine the other 21 participants.
New Zealand, Fiji and France won those respective tournaments, which also saw four nations qualify for the RWC Sevens for the first time - the Cook Islands, Portugal, Morocco and Zimbabwe.
The first day at the Hong Kong Stadium saw the teams divided into eight pools of three with England, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, France, Spain, South Africa and Samoa emerging as the winners of the preliminary pools.
The 24 nations were then redrawn into eight new pools for the ranking round on day two with the winners progressing to the Melrose Cup quarter finals, the runners-up to the Plate competition and the remaining teams into the Bowl competition.
Seven of these eight pools were topped by unbeaten teams, the exception being Pool G which witnessed a 12-12 draw between Spain and Korea and ultimately was decided in the latter's favour on points difference since both had beaten Zimbabwe.
Fiji had arguably been the most impressive, the tournament favourites not conceding a point in reaching the Cup quarter finals and scoring 205 of their own in accounting for Portugal, Hong Kong, Namibia and Wales.