The 2025 HSBC SVNS season will wrap up May 3-4 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif., where the champions will be crowned at the 2028 Olympic rugby sevens venue.
The championship round of the elite rugby sevens competition will follow a stop in Singapore, World Rugby announced Monday.
The first five events of the 2025 season, including Feb. 21-23 in Vancouver, were announced in August.
The Canadian men won't be part of the new season, however. They dropped out in June after being beaten 22-14 by Spain in a relegation decider in Madrid.
The Canadian women return, energized by their silver-medal performance this summer at the Paris Olympics. They finished fifth overall last season on the HSBC SVNS circuit.
The 2025 season will feature seven rounds across seven months. There were eight events last season, with Madrid dropping off the schedule in 2025.
The new campaign kicks off Nov. 30-Dec. 1 in Dubai, followed by stops in Cape Town (Dec. 7-8), Perth, Australia (Jan. 24-26), Vancouver, Hong Kong (March 28-30), Singapore and California.
Kenya and Uruguay join the men's field this season, with Samoa also relegated. The China women also won promotion, replacing South Africa.
The Canada men, who finished eighth at the Tokyo Olympics, had been a core team on the top sevens circuit since 2012-13 and lifted the trophy in Singapore in 2017. But they paid the price for a nightmare season, losing 29 straight games including four in a row in Madrid.
Canada, which finished the season bottom of the standings in 12th place with a 3-36-0 record, drops down to the second-tier Challenger Series and will have to win its way back up.
The Canada men survived a relegation battle in 2023, defeating Kenya 12-7 to preserve their core status. The 2023 relegation fight was a product of the sevens circuit reducing the number of men's teams to 12 from 16 to align with the women's competition and the Olympic field.
Promotion/relegation is now an annual feature.
The penultimate event in Singapore will decide the 2025 SVNS league winners — the men's and women's team with the most cumulative points from the first six rounds. The top eight sides after Singapore will then take part in the winner-take-all California finale.
The California stop will also host the promotion and relegation playoffs that will see the top four men’s and women’s teams from the HSBC Sevens Challenger join the bottom-four teams in the SVNS standings to decide the final four core teams.
Olympic champion France is the reigning SVNS men's champion, having defeated SVNS league winners Argentina to claim the inaugural title in 2024.
Australia won the women's title, defeating France 26-7 in Madrid. New Zealand downed Canada 26-14 for third place.
The New Zealand women subsequently defended their Olympic title in Paris with a 19-12 win over Canada.
World Rugby says the 2025 season, for the first time, will feature an all-female officiating panel for the women’s competition.
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HSBC SVNS Core Teams
Women
New Zealand, Australia, France, United States, Canada, Fiji, Ireland, Great Britain, Japan, Brazil, Spain and China.
Men
Argentina, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, France, Fiji, South Africa, Britain, United States, Spain, Uruguay and Kenya.
HSBC SVNS Schedule
Nov. 20-Dec. 1, 2024: Dubai, Sevens Stadium.
Dec. 7-8: Cape Town, DHL Stadium.
Jan. 24-26: Perth, Australia, HBF Park.
Feb. 21-23: Vancouver, B.C. Place Stadium.
March 28-20: Hong Kong, Kai Tak Stadium.
April 5-6: Singapore, National Stadium.
May 3-4: Los Angeles, Dignity Health Sports Park.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press