China Women And Uruguay Men – World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 Champions

The Chinese women completed a clean sweep of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 to claim the Cup in Krakow as well as the Series and confirm their place in Madrid for the HSBC SVNS qualification tournament.

The Uruguay men won the Challenger title in Munich and will head to Spain along with Chile, Kenya, and Germany, as the Hong Kong China men agonisingly lost out.

World Rugby Chief Competitions and Performance Officer Nigel Cass said after the final matches in Europe this weekend: “The quality, talent, drama and excitement on show was a great demonstration of the continuing growth and evolution of rugby sevens around the globe.

The new competition model meant there was more to play for than ever before in this year’s Challenger, with four men’s and four women’s teams having the opportunity to gain promotion to HSBC SVNS 2025 through the new promotion and relegation tournament in Madrid, and it certainly created some thrilling moments on and off the pitch this weekend.”

China Reign Supreme On Challenger Series 2024

The top four women’s sides in the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 were China, Belgium, Argentina, and Poland, as both the African and Asian sides stumbled in the final leg, barring China, who ended the Series with just a single defeat. Kenya and Uganda had both been in the running to qualify in the top four but results in Krakow did not go their way.

The Thailand women and Hong Kong China women finished 9th and 11th respectively in Krakow, with the latter bringing an inexperienced and young team with 8 debutants due to the scheduling conflict with the Asia Rugby Women’s Championship 2024 getting underway from 22 May 2024 in Hong Kong. The ARWC offers qualification for the RWC 2025 and WXV 2024, so many senior players were in preparation for the XV version of the game.

Both Thailand (beating PNG) and HKCR (defeating Mexico) ended Sunday on a high after a tough weekend and 7th and 9th overall on the log.

The way in which China dominated teams (Belgium being the only really close game in Krakow) and their 36-0 dismantling of Poland in the final at Henryk Reyman’s Municipal Stadium despite the home partisan support should be sending alarm bells to the opposition in Madrid. Liu Xiaquan (with 28 tries in the series) will be giving defenders nightmares but there are threats throughout the team.

China Assistant Coach Rocky Khan said: “It’s an amazing feeling. The girls have been awesome throughout the whole series. Even in training sessions back home every day they put a lot of effort in. They want to work hard and they want to get better.”

I am just so proud of how they have performed over the three tournaments and even to pull form here this weekend and to win the Challenger series is amazing and going to Madrid is a massive opportunity and hopefully we can make a good shot of it. I’m just so proud and we will enjoy the moment for now,” added Khan.

Uruguay Men Claim Honours

On the Men’s side, Uruguay defeated the hosts at the Dantestadion in Munich, after the Germans narrowly beat Hong Kong China men in a winner-takes-all semifinal, scoring after the hooter to win 21-14 to secure a top-four finish and leave the HKCR men with another question of “what if” as they endured another heartbreaker to miss out on a major tournament.

They are still in contention for the Olympics and will head to Monaco to try and qualify for Paris.

Photo credit: Mike Lee – KLC fotos for World Rugby – Hong Kong China Men

Uruguay captain Diego Ardao said: “I feel very proud of the team, of our staff, and of our friends that stayed at home but were in the team. We trained very hard. We worked for it and we achieved our goals, that was being champions here and achieving qualification for Madrid. So I’m extremely happy and mostly as I said, I’m very proud of the team.”

The Germans were runners-up in Munich and 4th overall in the Series, with Hong Kong China claiming bronze after beating Chile late on Sunday 12-0 and finishing 5th on the table. Seb Brien topped the try-scoring charts with Max Denmark just behind for HKCR.

The Japanese men had another tough weekend and finished 11th overall with only the solitary win over the weekend and ending 8th overall in the standings.

Both Morgan White and Sunny Lee were in Munich and Krakow for the final leg of the World Rugby Challenger Sevens Series, with Sunny Lee the match referee for the women’s final which China won convincingly over the hosts Poland.

All of the match results from the final Challenger round can be seen here.

Rugby Sevens 2024

• Alicia Lucas – 2024 Olympics Will Take Sevens Rugby To Even Greater Heights.
• Bryan Habana – The HSBC SVNS Series Is Incredibly Diverse & We Should Celebrate That.
• Sam Pinder – SVNS Is A Fantastic Vehicle For Being Able To Grow The Sport Of Rugby.
• Samantha Teo (Singapore Women’s 7s) – Rugby Opens Up Doors.