No gold for Blitzboks - bookies

Cape Town - The Blitzboks will beat Great Britain in their Sevens semi-final, but lose in the final to Fiji - if bookmakers are to be believed...

Neil Powell's Blitzboks side have qualified for the semi-final stage of the Rio Olympics, having gained revenge over Australia in the quarter-final clash.

The Blitzboks started their Rio campaign with a 24-0 win over Spain and then accounted for France 26-0.

They however came unstuck against Australia (12-5) in their final group match.

Despite the defeat, the Blitzboks still topped Group B - and were drawn to face Australia in the quarters.

A much-improved performance saw the South Africans romp to a 22-5 victory.

In the semi-finals the Blitzboks will face Great Britain, who beat Argentina 5-0 after extra-time in their quarter-final.

Fiji will face surprise quarter-finalists Japan in the first semi-final on Thursday (19:30 SA time), with the SA v Great Britain clash set for 20:00.

The losers of each semi-final will square-off in the match for bronze later in the evening (23:30), with the final scheduled for midnight SA time.

Leading SA bookmakers Sportingbet have installed Fiji as 4/5 favourites to win their first ever Olympic gold medal in any sport, with South Africa next best at 15/8.

Great Britain can be backed at 4/1, while the Japanese fairytale is expected to come to an end with the Cherry Blossoms rank outsiders at 40/1.