- World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger second round begun in Montevideo, Uruguay on Friday with all teams playing two pool matches
- Argentina, Belgium, China, Poland and Uganda women celebrated International Women’s Day with a pair of victories to secure their places in the quarter-finals
- Hong Kong China and Uganda only teams in the men’s competition with perfect win records on day one
- The action continues from 11:15 local time (GMT-3) on Saturday ahead of finals day on Sunday.
- The Challenger provides a promotion pathway to HSBC SVNS 2025 with the top four placed teams after three rounds securing their place in the newpromotion and relegation play-off competition at the HSBC SVNS 2024 Grand Final in Madrid
- Fans around the globe can watch the action on tv
The second round of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 began in Montevideo, Uruguay on Friday with all teams playing their first two pool matches of the competition.
On International Women’s Day there was joy for Argentina, Belgium, China, Poland and Uganda who marked the occasion with a pair of victories to secure their places in the women’s quarter-finals on Saturday afternoon.
China continued the fine form that saw them crowned champions at the opening round in Dubai with convincing victories over Paraguay 29-5 and Czechia 28-15, but they trail Poland on points difference in Pool A as the European nation impressed with big wins over Czechia 46-0 and Paraguay 32-5.
Belgium are the only unbeaten team in Pool B, beginning the day with a 37-5 defeat of Papua New Guinea before overcoming Hong Kong China 24-5, who had earlier claimed a shock 12-0 victory over Dubai silver medallists Kenya.
Argentina were bronze medallists in Dubai and rewarded their band of supporters with wins over Mexico 54-0 and 10-7 against a valiant Thailand side to top Pool C.
The men’s event was again intensely competitive with only Hong Kong China and Uganda going unbeaten on day one to claim their places in the quarter-finals.
Hong Kong China started the day on fine form by thrashing Olympic qualified Japan 42-7 and backed that result up with a hard fought 19-14 win over Dubai silver medallists Chile to top Pool B.
Uruguay - who have qualified for the Olympic Games in Paris and claimed bronze in Dubai -pleased their fans at Estadio Charrúa with an opening Pool C win over Papua New Guinea 31-14 but went down to a 26-21 defeat to Uganda in an epic encounter to bring the curtain down on day one. Uganda earlier produced a stirring comeback to beat Germany 17-14, having trailed 14-0 with just three minutes remaining.
It is all to play for on Saturday morning in Pool A as each team won and lost a match on day one. Georgia produced an outstanding performance to beat Dubai champions Kenya 17-0 and leave the pool which also includes Portugal and 2023 Challenger champions Tonga in the balance.
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China women’s player Chen Keyi said: “We are happy with our wins today but there are many things that we can still improve like our tackling. We want to keep our rhythm and our flow and aim not to let the opponents score first.”
“Today was International Women’s Day and I think rugby is a great example of women with passion, bravery and courage on the pitch.”
Hong Kong China men’s captain Seb Ryan said: “We’re really pleased to start with two wins. It was always going to be tough against Japan, we play them a lot and amazing to get one up on Chile too. We’ll go home tonight happy with day but it all really counts towards the quarter-final which our next aim.
“We have the belief to go all the way. Obviously the last tournament was a bit disappointing so we’re just taking it every game as it comes and we’ll build through the knock-outs and hope to go all the way to the final.”
The action continues from 11:15 local time (GMT-3) 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 kicked off with a combined men’s and women’s event at The Sevens Stadium in Dubai on 12-14 January, followed by this weekend’s second round at Estadio Charrúa in Montevideo 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.
Fans around the globe can watch the action on rugbypass.tv.