Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe men’s sevens rugby team, the Cheetahs will open their World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series 2022 in Chile with a Pool B clash against Hong Kong this afternoon.
Zimbabwe will proceed to face Tonga and Jamaica tomorrow as they conclude their pool fixtures.
In pool A, hosts Chile face South Korea, Papua New Guinea and Georgia.
The top two from each pool along with the two best third-placed teams will qualify for the quarter-finals, before the semi-finals and final will decide the tournament winners on Sunday.
World Rugby has revealed the captains of the 12 men’s and 12 women’s teams competing at the competition gathered on Wednesday in Parque Metropolitano de Santiago in front of the majestic Andes mountain range.
The huge prize at stake for the tournament winners is promotion to the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2023. The Challenger Series was introduced in 2020 to boost rugby sevens’ development across the globe and provide a pathway for promotion to the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
Japan were the inaugural men’s winners and following a year’s break due to the global pandemic, the Challenger Series is back with a combined standalone event.
The global event sees teams from all six World Rugby regions represented in a competition format that replicates the Olympic Games with three pools of four teams.
Germany who produced impressive performances as an invitational team on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in 2021 and 2022 are in pool C with Lithuania, Uruguay and Uganda who impressed at the recent Commonwealth Games where they drew with Australia in a pulsating pool match with Australia in a pulsating pool match.
Zimbabwe will also use the tournament to prepare for next month’s Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town, South Africa. Coach Graham Kaulback indicated that they want to name the final squad for the World Cup at the end of this month. — @innocentskizoe
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