Five years ago his Olympic experience was bitter-sweet. He was one of two travelling reserves for Team GB in Rio and was very much an outsider – the dreaded 13th man!
Along with the three other reserves for the men’s and women’s teams he had to stay in a flat in Rio outside the athlete’s village, take taxis to training and wasn’t allowed to go pitchside on game days.
While Ruaridh McConnachie got called up, Treharne didn’t. There was no medal for him after the squad won silver and he was sent home the day after the tournament ended, while the team stayed on for an extra few days.
To top it all off, when he got back to the Lensbury Club to pick up his car it had been damaged. It left him wondering whether or not he would go through it all again, but here he is five years on hoping to finally convince the selectors he is worth a slot this time around.
“The fact then National Lottery has agreed to fund the Team GB build up to Tokyo was the first bit of positive evens news since the last round of the World Series in Vancouver,” said Treharne.
“The sevens programmes were all ditched in the UK and it was disappointing to have our contracts ended by the Unions, rather than staying on furlough. But at least now we will get the chance to show what we are capable of.
“I’m not looking too far ahead. Everyone is saying they want the Olympic Games to go ahead, but you just don’t know what is going to happen with the COVID virus. It has been mad to see how the outbreak has impacted on so many aspects of people’s lives around the world.
“It has been with us for almost a year now. My father came out of retirement as a GP to help out, my mother is also a doctor and my sister has been on the frontline as a doctor in ICU in Bristol.
“I put my name forward to help having qualified as a doctor myself, but I haven’t yet undertaken by foundation years, so I wasn’t called up. That has meant I’ve had time to maintain my fitness and do a few other things.”
Among those things have been producing a You Tube channel called ‘This is Sevens’, working towards earning a professional Drone license and working out with his brother to maintain peak fitness.
He even managed to fit in some rugby before Christmas when he was art of a South African side that won the Bermuda 10s. Now he is just raring to go and to begin the battle for a place in the Team GB squad.
“World Rugby has arranged a few tournaments in the build up to Tokyo and I don’t think it will take long for the Team GB squad to bond. In any case, every team in the world will be in a similar situation because of COVID,” said Treharne.
“I don’t think the time-frame will affect us and I’d be pretty confident that the squad will be able to perform at a high level quite quickly. There are a lot of players who were in the wider squad who are still available from last time.
“I’ve stayed fit and there are now 1500 subscribers to our You Tube channel who have been joining in the exercises with my brother and I. That has certainly helped in what has been a very challenging year.
“It had been four years hard work to try to get to Tokyo, so another 12 months won’t hurt. I’d love to make it and to become a true Olympian.”
