HSBC SVNS rugby champions to be decided at 2028 Olympic venue in California

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.

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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