After two days of intense, high-action rivalry, Portugal’s men’s team and Kenya women’s took top honours at the second round of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025 in Cape Town.
The top eight men’s teams to go to the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger third round in Krakow are Germany, Canada, Portugal, Chile, Samoa, Japan, Madagascar, and Tonga.
On International Women’s Day, there was joy for Kenya, South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, Thailand, Czechia, Poland and Uganda, who marked the occasion by securing their places in the third Challenger round on 11-12 April in Poland.
Germany won the first men’s semi-final 24-12 over Canada, and Portugal reached the final thanks to a 36-14 win over Japan. Portugal dominated the men’s competition, claiming a spot in the final with a 12-7 victory over Germany.
South African women beat Czechia 21-15 in the first semi-final, while Kenya was victorious over Colombia with 12-5. For a second consecutive tournament, Kenya lifted gold beating South Africa 17-0 in an all-African women’s finals. South Africa ended in second place—Canada men’s and Colombia women’s beat Japan and Czechia to third place.
The Challenger series starts with back-to-back events in Cape Town, with the top-ranked eight men’s and women’s teams progressing to the third and final tournament at the Henryk Reyman’s Municipal Stadium in Krakow on 11-12 April.
Captain of the Portuguese team, Diogo Sarmento reflected on their experience: “This win is overwhelming. The conditions were not perfect for us as we had a lot of players making their debut and the average age of the group is 20. We stood together, and what we accomplished is fantastic. We worked hard and now we are looking forward to going to the next round.”
“Reflecting on their second World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger win in Cape Town, the captain, Grace Okulu said: This is the first time we achieved back-to-back wins in the Sevens Challenger and we are now Challenger champions. We are now ready for anything.”
The four men’s and women’s teams with the most cumulative points gained across the three Challenger rounds will then qualify for the HSBC SVNS Play Off in Los Angeles on 3 – 4 May, where they will face the bottom four ranked teams from HSBC SVNS 2025 in a high-stakes promotion and relegation tournament with four coveted places in future SVNS at stake.
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 massive growth over the past two decades since the introduction of the global sevens series and becoming an Olympic sport at the Rio 2016 Games.
Fans around the globe can watch the action on rugbypass.tv or via domestic broadcast partners.
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