The opening round of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 kicked off in Dubai on Friday with all teams playing their first two pool matches of the competition.
In the women’s tournament there were flying starts for Argentina, Belgium, Czechia and Thailand who all finished day one with a pair of victories to secure their spots in Saturday’s quarter-finals.
The men’s event saw some intensely competitive matches and close scorelines as Germany, Hong Kong China, Kenya, and Challenger 2023 Champions Tonga claimed two wins each to ensure their safe passage to the quarter-finals.
The action continues from 11:15 local time (GMT+4) on Saturday with the final round of pool matches followed by the quarter-finals ahead of finals day on Sunday.
There is more to play for than ever before in this year’s Challenger with the competition expanded to three rounds and the top four placed men’s and women’s teams qualifying for the new promotion and relegation play-off competition at the HSBC SVNS 2024 Grand Final in Madrid.
The Challenger tournaments replicate the Olympic Games competition format, with the 12 teams drawn into three pools of four teams each. The top two from each pool as well as the two best third-placed finishers will qualify for the knockout stages with quarter-finals and
The Challenger was introduced in February 2020 to boost the development of rugby sevens across the globe and provide a clear promotion pathway to reach the top level of global rugby sevens for the short format of the game which has experienced huge growth over the past two decades since the introduction of the global sevens series and becoming an Olympic sport at the Rio 2016 Games.
The bigger and better than ever 2024 edition of the Challenger kicks off with combined events at The Sevens Stadium in Dubai on 12-14 January, followed by Estadio Charrúa in Montevideo, Uruguay on 8-10 March before standalone women’s and men’s events at Henryk Reyman’s Municipal Stadium in Krakow, Poland and Dantestadion in Munich, Germany respectively on 18-19 May.
