We have today confirmed dates for its Performance Competition Calendar for the remainder of the 2022 season. A comprehensive programme of tournaments until December has been announced for both adults and juniors in all categories.
Highlights include Great Britain hosting ITF World Tennis Tour (WTT) Women’s $100K and $60K events, both on indoor hard courts, in Shrewsbury and Glasgow, respectively.
There are further ITF World Tennis Tour (WTT) Men’s $25K events taking place in Sheffield, Sunderland and Glasgow in October and a Women’s $25K event in Loughborough the same month. Abingdon will host an ITF Wheelchair Tennis Tour Futures event in October, with the Wheelchair Tennis National Finals to take place at the start of December.
Professional event calendar
M25 Sheffield – w/c 3 October
M25 Sunderland – w/c 10 October
W60 Glasgow – w/c 17 October
M25 Glasgow – w/c 17 October
ITF Futures – w/c 17 October
W25 Loughborough – w/c 24 October
W100 Shrewsbury – w/c 31 October
Wheelchair Tennis National Finals – w/c 28 November
The 14U calendar features the new Junior Home Nations event in the week commencing 26 September, as well as in Nottingham the week commencing 24 October followed by the season-ending Tennis Europe Junior Tour category 3 event in Liverpool the week commencing 7 November.
For 12 and under players there will be Junior Home Nations events and Nationals (at Bolton and Corby) in the same weeks as the 14U events. There will also be a Tennis Europe Category 1 event in Bath the week commencing 31 October.
Finally, for 10U players there will be a National Tour event in the autumn in Sunderland and the 9U players will have National Tour events at either the National Tennis Centre or Loughborough University.
The Performance Competitions Calendar is designed to provide significantly enhanced opportunities for British players at each age and stage of the player pathway. Once the season concludes in December, we will have staged a total of 98 international events for age groups from 10U to pro-players on British soil (excluding traditional grass court season events) throughout 2022. This is a percentage increase in tournaments of 139% since 2019.
Prize money of 145,000 on offer during expanded Women’s Series in 2023; Women’s World Matchplay will be staged again next year; inaugural Women’s World Matchplay live on Sky Sports Action from 1pm on Sunday, with Fallon Sherrock and Lisa Ashton among the players involved
Last Updated: 23/07/22 9:12am
Fallon Sherrock is one of the eight players participating in the inaugural Women’s World Matchplay in Blackpool on Sunday
The Professional Darts Corporation has announced that its Women’s Series will expand to 24 events for the 2023 season with £145,000 in prize money to be offered in total.
The eight-player Women’s World Matchplay – which is being staged for the first time this Sunday in Blackpool, live on Sky Sports from 1pm – will return in 2023.
Fallon Sherrock and Lisa Ashton are among the players competing at the first Women’s World Matchplay.
Qualification for that event next year will come from a 12-month Order of Merit commencing from the Women’s Series events in August 2022.
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Laura Turner has the lowdown on the players who will be battling it out at the inaugural Women’s World Matchplay on Sunday, live on Sky Sports
Laura Turner has the lowdown on the players who will be battling it out at the inaugural Women’s World Matchplay on Sunday, live on Sky Sports
Live Women’s World Matchplay Darts
July 24, 2022, 1:00pm
Live on
The Order of Merit will include eight tournaments across the remaining two Women’s Series weekends of 2022 as well as an expected 12 events in the first half of 2023.
Twenty-four Women’s Series events will be held across six weekends next year. Each tournament is worth £5,000 in prize money.
PDC Chief Executive Matt Porter said: “We’ve been hugely encouraged by the increased interest in the PDC Women’s Series this year, with entries up by 50 percent to 100 on average, and there’s a lot of excitement ahead of the Betfred Women’s World Matchplay on Sunday.
“The Women’s World Matchplay will feature a great mix of experienced players and emerging faces, and it’s going to be fascinating to see them on stage at the Winter Gardens challenging for that title.
“With players also competing in the Cazoo Grand Slam of Darts and Cazoo World Championship, the opportunities for women within the PDC have never been greater and it’s a boost that we can continue to grow this aspect of the sport in 2023.”
Sherrock (left) plays Katie Sheldon in this Sunday’s quarter-finals, with Lisa Ashton (right) to open up against Chloe O’Brien
The Women’s Series will continue with events 13-16 in Hildesheim, Germany on August 27-28 ahead of the year’s final weekend in Wigan on October 29-30 with events 17-20.
2022 Women’s World Matchplay Sunday July 24 Draw Bracket (1) Lisa Ashton v (8) Chloe O’Brien (4) Aileen de Graaf v (5) Laura Turner (2) Fallon Sherrock v (7) Katie Sheldon (3) Lorraine Winstanley v (6) Rhian Griffiths
Format Quarter-Finals – Best of seven legs Semi-Finals – Best of nine legs Final – Best of 11 legs
Check out daily Darts news on skysports.com/darts, our app for mobile devices and our Twitter account @skysportsdarts. Watch the inaugural Women’s World Matchplay live on Sky Sports Action from 1pm on Sunday.
The ICC will confirm the hosts for four marquee women’s global events in the 2023-27 period during their annual conference starting in Birmingham this weekend. The four tournaments feature two T20 World Cups, one 50-over World Cup and one T20 Champions Trophy, which were part of the half a dozen events the ICC recently finalised as part of the women’s rights, which for the first time will be sold separately from men’s rights.
The host venues for the women’s events will be finalised by a working group comprising ICC directors who will arrive at a shortlist from the bids received. ESPNcricinfo has learned that ICC has received 16 proposals from seven countries for the four events.
Based on the recommendations of the working group – comprising former New Zealand fast bowler Martin Snedden who is also chairman of New Zealand Cricket, former India captain and current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, Cricket West Indies’ president Ricky Skerritt and former England women’s captain Clare Connor who is also the acting ECB CEO – the ICC will take the final call at the meeting on July 26. The annual conference will begin with the Chief Executives Committee (CEC) meeting on July 24 followed by the Finance & Commercial Affairs committee meeting on July 25, and will end with the annual general meeting which follows the board meeting.
Unlike in the previous cycles when women’s rights were sold as part of the consolidated rights package, the ICC has decided to unbundle the rights for men’s and women’s events and sell them in different territories separately. There are a total of 103 matches across the six women’s events with the rights being sold for three packages – TV, digital, TV and digital combined – for four years. The aim was to maximise the financial returns, and, as part of the new plan the ICC has also decided to sell the TV and digital rights separately. Accordingly, a rights tender for men’s events for the Indian market, the most lucrative territory, went on sale recently with successful bids to be announced in early September.
T20 Leagues vs international cricket
One of the key discussions the CEC could potentially discuss involves the primacy of international cricket and whether it is under threat from the growing number of domestic T20 leagues. In the near-completed version of the ICC’s next cycle of FTP (2023-27), the IPL has got an extended two-and-a-half-month window and Hundred and BBL also have home-season windows.
While ICC has no direct role to play considering it is the member countries that decide on both the bilateral series as well as T20 league windows, at least one Full Member has expressed concern in public over the international calendar being encroached on by the franchise-based tournaments. Recently the PCB wrote a letter to ICC saying it was a “little concerned that the proliferation of domestic leagues around the world is sucking time out of the international calendar” and requested a working group to be formed to address the issue.
ICC also likely to discuss Afghanistan’s future
Another important discussion the ICC is likely to take up is the future of Afghanistan cricket. Last year, after the Taliban took charge of Afghanistan, the board formed a working group to observe and review cricket in the war-torn country. A key part of the working group’s brief was to understand whether the women’s cricket was indeed in “peril” as former Afghanistan Cricket Board Hamid Shinwari told ESPNcricinfo last year.
Doubts over Afghanistan’s future in international cricket emerged last September, when the deputy head of Taliban’s cultural commission Ahmadullah Wasiq, told SBS News that it wasn’t “necessary” for women to play cricket because “they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered.” Cricket Australia even postponed the Test match against Afghanistan, which was scheduled for Hobart last November, following the stance.
Afghanistan became a Full Member of the ICC in 2017 despite not having a national women’s team. team. At the time ICC had made the exemption subject to ACB investing in the development of women’s sport. In November 2020 the ACB had pledged to offer 25 women’s players contracts with aim of developing their game, but Tailban’s arrival halted all the progress.
The ICC working group on Afghanistan is chaired by Imran Khwaja, Ross McCollum, Lawson Naidoo and Ramiz Raja, and the panel is set to update the board.
The conference agenda also includes finalising the process for the ICC chairman election, which is likely to take place in November when the current chair Greg Barclay’s first term ends. Apart from this, the members are also set to iron out FTP further, and a final version is expected only post the annual conference.
For a while the worry for the world of athletics has been who will fill the void left by the great sprinter Usain Bolt. The World Championships in Oregon is next month and Yohan’s Blake’s return to form with a blistering 9.85 seconds, his best timing in a decade, could not have come at a better moment. In the 200 metres, the build up to the showdown between defending world champion Noah Lyles and the next big star Erriyon Knighton got even bigger when Lyles beat the 18-year-old to win the men’s 200m final at the US Athletics Championships.
Lyles showed why he is in the form of his life as he gained ground on the straight after Knighton was ahead coming out of the curve. While Blake and Lyles have been in focus, the women have gone about setting the track on fire ahead of the Worlds.
On Sunday at the Jamaican Championships in Kingston, Shericka Jackson (21.55 seconds) ran the third-fastest 200 metres in history to complete the sprint double and laid down the marker for her countrymates Elaine Thompson-Herah (22.05) and world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (22.14) who finished second and third respectively.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to run this fast. I knew I was in good shape and when I spoke to the coach yesterday, he wanted a proper execution and the curve was one of the areas discussed. I think I did well on the curve, my coach told me to run the first 100m hard and do whatever I want afterwards. I am just grateful,” Jackson was quoted as saying by World Athletics website.
Jackson had also won her first Jamaican national in the 100 metres with a season best of 10.77 (0.9m/s).
Jackson is now only third behind Florence Griffith-Joyner’s (21.34) and Thompson-Herah’s (21.53) when it comes to the 200 metres.
If Jackson can keep this form going, and Fraser-Pryce runs both the sprint events it will be thrilling to watch the women’s 100 and 200 metres.
In fact, Thompson-Herah is gunning for Griffith-Joyner’s long-standing 100 metres world record of 10.49 seconds set in 1998. Thomson-Herah, the 100 metres and 200 metres champion of the Tokyo Olympics, in some people’s books should already be given the title of the fastest woman ever in the 100 metres. Her 10.54 achieved last year with a wind speed of (+0.9 metres per second) is more authentic than Griffith-Joyner’s, they say.
The reason has to do with the wind readings at the US trails back in 1988 when the current world record was set.
The controversial record has remained in the books though a malfunction in the wind gauge came to light later. Griffith Joyner’s world record set during the Quarterfinal 1 of the 1988 US Olympic trials, had a wind speed of zero. However, an IAAF (now World Athletics) study in 1995 found that the wind gauge had malfunctioned. Based on analysis of wind speeds during heats and qualifiers (tailwinds of at least 2.7 m/s and as high as five metres per second were recorded), the study concluded that when Quarterfinal 1 was being held the wind speed was actually +5.0m/s and not zero. The IAAF didn’t strike Griffith Joyner’s time off and till date it remains unbroken.
In a BBC interview from last year after she ran 10.54 seconds, Thompson-Herah said, “A few years ago I was asked whether I could break that record and I said it was not possible,” she said. “But for me to run 10.54 means it is within reach, therefore it means anything is possible.”
If Thompson-Herah breaks what has been considered an ‘evergreen record’ it will go down as one of the greatest feats in sport.
But don’t be surprised if Blake provides the added excitement in the men’s 100 metres.
“You have to believe in yourself,” said Blake. “I’m the second-fastest man in the history of the sport. The naysayers kept me going, whenever they say I won’t make it or I should give up, I use that to fuel me and push through,” Blake was quoted as saying by World Athletics.
Blake was also going through personal trauma because his father had suffered a stroke. He dedicated the win to his father.
“I just came out here to do this for him because I’ve been in disarray all week and just kept strong to win,” the 2011 world champion said.
Fina, swimming’s world governing body, has voted to stop transgender athletes from competing in women’s elite races if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty.
The new policy requires transgender competitors to have completed their transition by the age of 12 in order to be able to compete in women’s competitions.
Fina will also aim to establish an ‘open’ category at competitions for swimmers whose gender identity is different than their birth sex.
The new policy, which was passed with 71% of the vote from 152 Fina members, was described as “only a first step towards full inclusion” for transgender athletes.
The decision was made during an extraordinary general congress at the ongoing World Championships in Budapest.
Earlier Fina members heard a report from a transgender task force made up of leading figures from the world of medicine, law and sport.
“Fina’s approach in drafting this policy was comprehensive, science-based and inclusive, and, importantly, Fina’s approach emphasised competitive fairness,” said Brent Nowicki, the governing body’s executive director.
Fina president Husain Al-Musallam said the organisation was trying to “protect the rights of our athletes to compete” but also “protect competitive fairness”.
He said: “Fina will always welcome every athlete. The creation of an open category will mean that everybody has the opportunity to compete at an elite level. This has not been done before, so Fina will need to lead the way. I want all athletes to feel included in being able to develop ideas during this process.”
Former Great Britain swimmer Sharron Davies, who has argued against transgender participation in women’s elite swimming, said she was “proud” of her sport and Fina.
She thanked Fina “for doing the science, asking the athletes/coaches and standing up for fair sport for females”. She added: “Swimming will always welcome everyone no matter how you identify but fairness is the cornerstone of sport.”
However, ‘Athlete Ally’ – an LGBT advocacy group which organised a letter of support for transgender American swimmer Lia Thomas in February, called the new policy “discriminatory, harmful, unscientific and not in line with the 2021 IOC principles”.
“If we truly want to protect women’s sports, we must include all women,”the group’s tweet said.
Swimming follows cycling in rule change
Fina’s decision follows a move on Thursday by the UCI, cycling’s governing body, to double the period of time before a rider transitioning from male to female can compete in women’s races.
The issue in swimming has been catapulted into the spotlight by the experiences of American Thomas.
In March, Thomas became the first known transgender swimmer to win the highest US national college title with victory in the women’s 500-yard freestyle.
Thomas swam for the Pennsylvanian men’s team for three seasons before starting hormone replacement therapy in spring 2019.
She has since broken records for her university swimming team.
More than 300 college, Team USA and Olympic swimmers signed an open letter in support of Thomas and all transgender and non-binary swimmers, but other athletes and organisations have raised concerns about trans inclusion.
Some of Thomas’ team-mates and their parents wrote anonymous letters supporting her right to transition, but added it was unfair for her to compete as a woman.
USA Swimming updated its policy for elite swimmers in February to allow transgender athletes to swim in elite events, alongside criteria that aim to reduce any unfair advantage, including testosterone tests for 36 months before competitions.
Last year, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand became the the first openly transgender athlete to compete at an Olympics in a different sex category to that in which they were born.
What did the panel of experts say?
Dr Michael Joyner, a physiologist and leading expert in human performance
“Testosterone in male puberty alters the physiological determinants of human performance and explains the sex-based differences in human performance, considered clearly evident by age 12.
“Even if testosterone is suppressed, its performance enhancing effects will be retained.”
Dr Adrian Jjuuko, an activist, researcher and lawyer
“The policy emphasises that no athlete is excluded from Fina competition or setting Fina records based on their legal gender, gender identity or gender expression.
“[The proposed open category] should not become a category that adds to the already existing levels of discrimination and marginalisation against these groups.
“I see this policy as only the first step towards full inclusion and support for the participation of transgender and gender-diverse athletes in aquatic sports, and there is a lot more to be done.”
Dr Sandra Hunter, an exercise physiologist specialising in sex and age differences in athletic performance
“By 14 years or older, the difference between boys and girls is substantial. That’s due to the advantages experienced due to the physiological adaptations in testosterone and the possession of the Y chromosome.
“Some of these physical advantages are structural in origin such as height, limb length, heart size, lung size and they will be retained, even with the suppression or reduction of testosterone that occurs in the transition from male to female.”
Summer Sanders, former Olympic and world champion in swimming
“This is not easy. There must be categories – women’s, men’s and of course a category for trans women and trans men.
“Fair competition is a stronghold and staple of our community – this approach safeguards the integrity of the existing sports process in which millions of girls and women participate annually.”
One of sport’s biggest debates
The conversation around the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sport has divided opinion both inside and outside the sporting sphere.
Many argue transgender women should not compete in women’s sport because of any advantages they may retain – but others argue sport should be more inclusive.
World Athletics president Lord Coe has said the “integrity” and “future” of women’s sport would be “very fragile” if sporting organisations get regulations for transgender athletes wrong.
The heart of the debate on whether transgender women athletes should compete in women’s sport involves the complex balance of inclusion, sporting fairness and safety – essentially, whether trans women can compete in female categories without giving them an unfair advantage or presenting a threat of injury to competitors.
Trans women have to adhere to a number of rules to compete in specific sports, including in many cases lowering their testosterone levels to a certain amount, for a set period of time, before competing.
There are concerns, however, as highlighted in Fina’s decision, that athletes retain an advantage from going through male puberty that is not addressed by lowering testosterone.
The ICChas gone to market with its media rights for the next eight-year cycle, and it has done so in a completely different fashion than before. The ICC will go to market in India alone beginning next week, selling rights for men’s and women’s events individually, as well as digital rights. This reflects the shifting media landscape.
The ICC’s choice to go to India first reflects a determination to get the best business contract possible. The ICC has previously sold worldwide rights to both men’s and women’s tournaments on a consolidated basis. No longer: the ICC intends to sell rights for various areas in the future, in the hopes of attracting more bids and therefore increasing the deal’s overall worth.
Invitation To Tender For All Events In The India Market Due On 22 August
ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2022. Image Credits: Twitter
On June 20, the ICC will issue an Invitation To Tender (ITT) for all of the events in the Indian market, and sealed bids will be due on August 22. By early September 2022, the ICC will notify the selected bidders before issuing the ITTs for further markets.
Before announcing its proposal for the world tournaments, the ICC waited for the BCCI to finish its media rights e-auction for the IPL, which brought in deals worth more than $US 6 billion. Before finalising its own strategy, the ICC engaged the BCCI to evaluate the approach utilised for the IPL rights auction.
The ICC, unlike the BCCI, will continue to employ the sealed-bids procedure “to inspire potential bidders to make their highest bid for the events and package they want,” according to a media statement.
Six Different Bundles To Be Available In India
In India, up to six different bundles will be available, including TV-only, digital-only, and a mix of the two.
Bidders can compete in 16 men’s events (spanning eight years) and six women’s events (spanning four years), totaling 362 and 103 matches, respectively. Only senior-level matches are included in these data; the men’s and women’s Under-19 World Cups (one-day and T20) will also be included, although they will be in addition to these match figures.
India women’s cricket team. Image: Twitter
Four Under-19 World Cups, four T20 World Cups, two Champions Trophies, four World Test Championship finals, and two 50-over World Cups are among the 16 men’s competitions. Two T20 World Cups, two Under-19 T20 World Cups, one 50-over World Cup, and one T20 Champions Trophy will be among the six women’s competitions.
The ICC media release said, that “interested parties will be required to submit a bid for the first four years of men’s events. However, they also have the option of bidding for an eight-year partnership.”
If any of the packages is only sold for four years, the ICC will open a new opportunity to sell the rights for the next four years.
For the men’s events (including the Under-19 events), three packages will be available:
TV (four/eight years)
Digital (four/eight years)
TV and digital combined (four/eight years)
Similar packages will be available for women’s events (including Under-19 events), with the exception that each will last four years:
TV (four years)
Digital (four years)
TV and digital combined (four years)
“There has been significant growth in interest in women’s cricket over the last five years and we have made a long-term strategic commitment to accelerate that growth, and unbundling the rights for our women’s events will play a huge role in that,” ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice said as per the release.
“We are looking for a broadcast partner who is excited by the role they will play in growing the women’s game and ensuring more fans than ever before can enjoy it.”
Highest Bid May Not Fetch Women’s Rights
The next ICC rights cycle will include six women’s tournaments (Image Credits: Twitter)
Bidders will have the option of exhibiting “their vision for cricket to the ICC, particularly for the Women’s Package” when they include their final bids in a sealed envelope in August, as part of the ICC’s continued drive to broaden the reach of women’s cricket internationally.
Instead of using money as the sole criterion for the next cycle, the ICC is inviting bidders to discuss how they will use their platform to promote the women’s game, which might add more value and purpose to the contract overall. For the women’s events, the ICC has left the option of not granting the rights to the highest bidder open.
Previously, women’s global tournament rights were sold as an add-on to men’s events, which the ICC believed devalued the women’s game.
The latest consolidated ICC rights contract had gone to Star India (2015-2023). The ICC has not announced the deal’s worth, but ESPNcricinfo understands it to be around US$ 1.9 billion.
The first UCI-sanctioned world championship for the rainbow stripes in gravel will be in Italy in October.
The UCI confirmed Thursday the Veneto region in the northeast Italy will host the first UCI gravel worlds October 8-9.
Italy will also host the UCI’s gravel worlds in 2023. The host cities will be announced later, officials said.
Four new events on Women’s WorldTour
The UCI also confirmed four new events on the Women’s WorldTour.
Four new events will join in 2023: The Women’s Santos Tour Down Under, which had UCI ProSeries status in 2020 then was cancelled in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UAE Tour, a new event which joins the existing men’s competition, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, which moves from UCI ProSeries status to UCI Women’s WorldTour status, and the Tour de Suisse, also moving from UCI ProSeries status to UCI Women’s WorldTour status.
Gree-Tour of Guangxi canceled
Races at the Gree-Tour of Guangxi in October are canceled for 2022.
The race was scheduled for October 13-18, and it marks the third year in a row the event is canceled due to the world pandemic. A women’s race is also canceled.
That means the final UCI’s final men’s WorldTour event will be Il Lombardia. The 2022 UCI Women’s WorldTour will end on 15 October, the last day of the Tour of Chongming Island, China, which is still on the schedule.
The UCI Management Committee also confirmed that the date of the end of the 2022 road season remains 18 October. This is the date of the last day of the Tour de Langkawi (UCI ProSeries), which will take place in Malaysia from October 11-18.
With the men’s WorldTour licenses up for grabs, the Langkawi tour could see a stellar field of teams desperate to chase points.
RideLondon Classique put on notice
The UCI put organizers of the RideLondon Classique (Great Britain) on notice after not providing required live TV coverage of each stage, but only of the last stage.
This constitutes a breach of the UCI Regulations and of the specifications that every organizer of the UCI Women’s WorldTour is required to respect, the UCI said Thursday.
The event’s place on the 2023 calendar is conditional to the presentation of firm commitments concerning the live TV broadcasting of all the stages.
In the meantime, the Management Committee has taken the decision to register the RideLondon Classique in the UCI ProSeries class for the 2023 season.
For the UCI, daily live TV coverage of the UCI Women’s WorldTour events “is fundamental to ensure its continued international development,” a statement read. A final decision on the status of this race will be taken at the UCI Management Committee meeting in September.
During the U.S. Women’s Open, Kang’s brother posted on Instagram some troubling news: His sister was playing the major championship with a tumor in her spine. Kang had withdrawn from the Palos Verdes Championship at the end of April, citing back pain. It wasn’t until the U.S. Women’s Open that news of the tumor was public.
As Kang continues to work with her doctors on a plan, she announced on Instagram that she’ll take some time off from competitive golf. In addition to three regular LPGA Tour events, she’ll miss the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the major she won in 2017. That event is scheduled for June 23-26.
Said Kang in her post: “As a past champion this was not an easy decision, however, if I’ve learned anything from throwing a fit to play in the U.S. Open, I want to compete, not just participate.”
Despite the back pain, Kang made the cut last week at Pine Needles and ultimately tied for 63rd.
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Langford may have hosted its last women’s sevens event, as Rugby Canada announced it is moving the tournament to BC Place Stadium in Vancouver starting next year.
The Canada leg of the Women’s Sevens Series, which has been hosted in Langford since its inception in 2015, will be hosted alongside the men’s event, with the weekend events expanding from two to three days to accommodate both tournaments.
The 2023 schedule for the series was released Tuesday, with the men’s and women’s tournaments running March 3 to 5 at B.C. Place.
Jamie Levchuk, interim chief executive office of Rugby Canada, said a request was made by the sport’s governing body World Rugby to combine the tournaments “for scheduling purposes and to better align with other tournaments on the Series.” Canada was the last leg of the series that held separate men’s and women’s events.
Having two “home teams” and providing equitable competition opportunities for the men’s and women’s teams, is important to Rugby Canada, he said. “The HSBC Canada Women’s Sevens in Langford was a great success and showcase for the women’s sevens game, but we feel 2023 will be an appropriate time for our events to evolve.”
Canada’s women recorded their highest finish of the 2021-22 series at Langford, finishing fifth in front of the home crowd at Starlight Stadium on April 30 and May 1. Overall, the team finished seventh on the series.
The City of Langford had outlined plans to expand the capacity of Starlight Stadium in its most recent five-year financial plan, but Levchuk said it was unknown whether the sevens series could return to Langford in the future.
“2023 marks the final year of our hosting agreement with World Rugby to operate World Rugby Sevens Series events in Canada. Our focus is on securing hosting rights for further years – once we are confirmed as a continuing host, we will evaluate hosting requirements and plan accordingly.”
He added Langford remains the home of Rugby Canada and that they are looking to bring other international events to Starlight Stadium. The women’s 15’s team is set to play Italy here on July 24, as they prepare for the women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in October.
