Wellington Sevens

Wellington Sevens
Sport Rugby sevens
Founded 2000
No. of teams 16
Country New Zealand
Most recent
champion(s)
 New Zealand (2016)
Most titles  New Zealand (9 titles)

The Wellington Sevens or New Zealand Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament held at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand. The tournament is the fourth on the Sevens World Series circuit, and is generally held on the first weekend of February on the weekend following the USA Sevens tournament. The Wellington Sevens includes teams from 16 countries.

The event attracts over 30,000 spectators annually. The tournament has become Wellington's largest sporting event, and one of New Zealand's leading sporting events.

Atmosphere

It also has a reputation for a party atmosphere, with a large proportion of attendees choosing to wear fancy dress. Recent years have seen large groups of costumes that vary from Fred Flintstone and Wilma to Care Bears, dance troops, wrestlers and many other interesting costumes. More recently items of recent media interest or advertisements form a key theme. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush have made appearances. Movie figures such as Men in Black (MIB) and Austin Powers are crowd favorites and an impersonator of Austin has been a regular feature each year performing to the crowd.

In 2009 Air New Zealand, one of the major sponsors for the Wellington sevens, introduced a 'Beads for Kisses' ambient media campaign as a yearly sevens ritual. Over 100,000 strings of Mardi gras style beads were given to the crowd, who could then exchange the beads for kisses from other participants. This was followed in 2010 with the addition of kissing booths.

Results

Year  Venue  Cup Plate Bowl Shield
Winner Final Score Runner-up Winner Winner Winner
2000 Westpac Stadium
Fiji
24 – 14
New Zealand

Canada

France
n/a
2001
Australia
19 – 17
Fiji

Samoa

South Africa

Japan
2002
South Africa
17 – 14
Samoa

Argentina

France

Cook Islands
2003
New Zealand
38 – 26
England

Samoa

Canada

Tonga
2004
New Zealand
33 – 15
Fiji

Tonga

Argentina

United States
2005
New Zealand
31 – 7
Argentina

Australia

Kenya

Niue
2006
Fiji
27 – 22
South Africa

England

Scotland

Tonga
2007
Samoa
17 – 14
Fiji

England

Argentina

Portugal
2008
New Zealand
22 – 17
Samoa

South Africa

England

United States
2009
England
19 – 17
New Zealand

South Africa

Cook Islands

Scotland
2010
Fiji
19 – 14
Samoa

Australia

Wales

United States
2011
New Zealand
29 – 14
England

Fiji

Kenya

United States
2012
New Zealand
24 – 7
Fiji

South Africa

Kenya

Scotland
2013
England
24 – 19
Kenya

Australia

Canada

Wales
2014
New Zealand
21 – 0
South Africa

Australia

Kenya

United States
2015
New Zealand
27 – 21
England

Fiji

France

Canada
2016
New Zealand
24 – 21
South Africa

Australia

Samoa

France
2017 28–29 January 2017

Notes and references

    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/15/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.