The 2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the eighth edition of the global circuit for women's national rugby sevens teams, organised by World Rugby.
Only five of the originally scheduled eight tournaments were completed before the series was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]New Zealand was awarded the series title at the end of June 2020, on account of it leading by 16 points over the second-placed Australia.[2]
The events planned for Hong Kong,[3] Langford and Paris were postponed,[4] before eventually being cancelled.[2]
Format
Twelve nations competed at each event,[5] drawn into three pools of four teams.[6] The top-placed teams after the pool matches at each tournament played off for a Cup, with gold, silver and bronze medals also awarded to the first three teams.[7] The winner of the series was determined by the overall points standings gained across all events in the season.[8]
Teams
The eleven "core teams" qualified to participate in all series events for 2019–20 were:
Brazil was promoted to core team status after winning the World Series qualifier held in Hong Kong in 2019,[9] replacing China who were relegated after finishing as the lowest-placed core team in 2018–19.
Tour venues
The original itinerary for the 2019–20 women's circuit included three new legs to be played in Cape Town,[10] Hamilton and Hong Kong,[11] although only the first two were able to be played. The women's Tokyo Sevens was not included in the series due to the Olympic Sevens being scheduled there instead.
After all tournaments planned for the second quarter of 2020 were cancelled, the series was reduced from eight legs to five. All but one of the completed legs were combined sevens tournaments with their corresponding events from the men's World Series,[12][13] with only the Glendale tournament hosted as a stand-alone women's event.[14]
The tournaments planned for Hong Kong (3–5 April 2020), Langford (2–3 May 2020) and Paris (30–31 May 2020),[16] were ultimately cancelled due to health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2]
^World Rugby announced that there would be no relegation from the 2019–20 core teams as the inaugural Challenger Series qualifying event for women's teams scheduled for March 2020 was not able to take place. Therefore, Brazil, who would have been relegated as the lowest placed core team, re-qualified as a core team for the next World Rugby Women's Sevens Series.[2]
