South Africa has been confirmed because the host nation for the three-day males’s and girls’s World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series in April 2023.
World Rugby announced on Wednesday that the match will happen on the Markötter Stadium in Stellenbosch from 28 to 23 April subsequent 12 months.
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The winner of the 12-team ladies’s Challenger Series will achieve the last word prize of computerized promotion to the Sevens World Series 2024 – the head of worldwide rugby sevens.
The 12 ladies’s groups competing are the Springbok Women’s Sevens, Belgium, China, Colombia, Czechia, Hong Kong, Madagascar, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Thailand, and a group from South America but to be confirmed.
The winner of the boys’s Challenger Series, which additionally options 12 groups, will enter a 4 group playoff on the London Sevens in May 2023 along with the groups positioned 12th to 14th after 10 rounds of the World Rugby Sevens Series, with the winner of the playoff attaining Sevens World Series 2024 standing.
The 12 males groups are Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
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The groups certified through their rating positions inside their related regional competitions and the pool draw will happen as soon as the total group line-ups are confirmed in early 2023.
The match replicates the Olympic Games competitors format, with the 12 groups drawn into three swimming pools of 4. The prime two from every in addition to the 2 greatest third-placed finishers will qualify for the knockout phases with quarter-finals and semi-finals main to the bronze and gold medal matches.
The Challenger Series was launched in February 2020 to increase the event of rugby sevens throughout the globe and supply a transparent promotion pathway to attain the head World Rugby Sevens Series.
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Japan have been the inaugural males’s champions after topping the cumulative rankings from the 2 rounds hosted in Chile and Uruguay in 2020. The first ladies’s competitors was scheduled to happen in Stellenbosch in March 2020 however had to be cancelled due to the onset of the worldwide pandemic.
Following a one-year absence the Challenger Series returned in August 2022 with a standalone mixed event hosted in Santiago, Chile, which noticed Uruguay males and Japan ladies take the titles and safe promotion to the present version of the World Rugby Sevens Series.
What SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux stated on internet hosting Challenger Series:
“We are very grateful to have the chance to host the 2 Challenger Series tournaments subsequent 12 months.
“The enchancment throughout the board in Sevens Rugby over the previous couple of years, and the competitiveness between all groups, makes for an excellent product and we will’t wait to ship these tournaments in Stellenbosch.
“With Rugby Sevens part of the Olympic Games, it will be a big occasion for all the teams involved and we would love nothing more than to see our own Springbok Women’s Sevens team play in Paris in 2024 – this could be the first step to achieving that dream.”
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What World Rugby chiefs competitions and efficiency officer Nigel Cass stated:
“The World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series is an important competitors for the continued growth of worldwide rugby sevens across the globe.
“Rugby sevens is a key driver of world progress for our sport, notably in rising nations and continues to develop and captivate audiences with its dynamic, skillful and thrilling nature, boosted by its extremely impactful and profitable appearances on the Olympic Games in Rio and Tokyo.
“The Challenger Series supplies a transparent pathway to attain the Sevens World Series, and groups from all six World Rugby areas have the chance to obtain their desires and attain the head degree of worldwide rugby sevens via their efforts within the Challenger Series.
“The choice to host consecutive weekends in Stellenbosch was based on performance and sustainability factors and we look forward to working closely in partnership with the South Africa Rugby Union to deliver a high quality performance environment for players and teams to showcase their talents.”
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