Ciaran Hearn selected for Olympics training program

A rugby player from Newfoundland and Labrador is one step closer to the possibility of becoming an Olympic athlete.

Ciaran Hearn, from Conception Bay, has been selected for Rugby Canada's Own the Podium training program in preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Hearn said he hopes that he'll be ready when the Olympic Games roll around in three years.

"I'll be 30 at that point, so getting up there for the age of rugby — and especially the game of seven - but there's some people playing on the circuit now that are in their 30s, so if I can still hang with the young kids by then, I'd definitely love to be able to say that I'm an Olympian," Hearn said.

According to Hearn, becoming an Olympian wasn't something he'd ever thought about before.

"It's like one of those things — when you grow up, to ever be an Olympian probably wasn't ever really on my radar because it wasn't an Olympic sport at that time," he said.

"It's one of those things where if you have an opportunity to make that leap into your sport, you kind of just jump at the opportunity. So that's kind of what I'm doing, trying to seize the moment, so to say."

The news comes just two weeks after Team Canada clinched a spot in the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Hearn is training full time in Langford, B.C. at the Canadian Rugby Centre of Excellence.

2016 will mark the first time Rugby has been played in the Olympics since 1924.