By Nathan Bragg for World Wheelchair Rugby
With a week to go to the 2022 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships in Vejle, wheelchair rugby writer Nathan Bragg takes a quick look at five storylines to follow before the action starts.
The debut of the quarterfinals
This year’s tournament will feature quarterfinals for the first time in an exciting new change to the World Championship format. The first round still features two pools of six teams, but now the top four teams from each pool will move onto the quarterfinals instead of the top two progressing directly to a semifinal.
The quarterfinals are scheduled to run on Day 5 of the competition (Friday, October 14). After that, the winners will move onto the medal round, while the losers will compete for 5th-8th place.
The tournament doesn’t end for 5th and 6th place teams in each pool though as they will compete for 9th-12th positions and vital world ranking points on Friday and Saturday.
The quarterfinals will be a welcome change for fans on the heels of a Paralympic Games that saw more than half of the matches decided by five tries or less.
The addition of quarterfinals allows teams to bounce back from a rough Day 1 or 2 and still make it onto the podium in a nearly impossible way under the old format.
It’ll be exciting to see what additional drama this extra round adds to the competition.
Record-setting women
Wheelchair rugby is a mixed sport; women are active in the sport at every level as athletes, coaches, officials, volunteers, and administrators in countries around the world. This year’s tournament will feature 13 women representing their countries on the court, compared to the previous record of 5 set in 2018.
8 of the 12 teams have a woman on their roster this year, with a record 3 (Shae Graham, Ella Sabljak, and Emilee Miller) set to take the court for Australia.
From established stars like Great Britain’s Kylie Grimes and Germany’s Britta Kripke to emerging talents like Colombia’s Paola Martinez, Denmark’s Sofie Skoubo, and new athletes like USA’s Sarah Adam and Australia’s Ella Sabljak – the present and future of women in wheelchair rugby looks bright as the 13 competing in Vejle will help their teams in pursuit of victory and hopefully inspire the next generation of women and girls to see what’s possible with the right amount of skill and dedication.
Fun fact: New Zealand’s Christeen Smith was the first woman to compete at a World Championship in wheelchair rugby. She won a silver medal with the Wheel Blacks at the 1st World Championship in Nottwil in 1995.
Women competing at the 2022 World Wheelchair Rugby Championship
- Australia: Emillee Miller (0.5)
- Australia: Shae Graham (2.5)
- Australia: Ella Sabljak (2.5)
- Colombia: Paola Martinez (2.0)
- Colombia: Leidis Omeira Hernandez (NEW)
- Denmark: Sofie Skoubo (0.5)
- Germany: Britta Kripke (1.0)
- Germany: Mascha Mosel (2.5)
- Great Britain: Kylie Grimes (0.5)
- Japan: Kae Kurahashi (0.5)
- New Zealand: Maia Amai-Marshall (2.5)
- USA: Elizabeth Dunn (0.5)
- USA: Sarah Adam (3.0)
Note: Female players don’t receive a reduction to their classification; instead, teams are allowed an additional 0.5 to their 8-point team total for each woman on the court.
Europe’s Time To Shine?
A European team has never made the podium at the World Wheelchair Rugby Championships, but that could all change this year, as Europe’s top 3 ranked teams could shake everything up at the top.
In 2021, Great Britain made history when they won the gold medal in Tokyo and became the first European wheelchair rugby team to reach the podium at the Paralympics and will no doubt be a medal contender in Denmark.
The Paralympic champion’s roster is full of experienced and exciting players and should be one of Europe’s top hopes to crack the podium, but they won’t be the only ones with medals in their sights.
Fifth-ranked France is building momentum towards hosting the Paralympics in 2024 and took a huge push forward earlier this year when they claimed their first European title at home in a 44-43 thriller over Great Britain. A medal in Vejle would be another significant milestone for the team on the road to Paris. Could this be the year that Les Bleus reach the podium? We’ll find out next week.
Meanwhile, hosts Denmark will be hoping that the home crowds can boost them to new heights. Vejle has already been the site of Danish wheelchair rugby history as the Danes qualified for their first Paralympic Games by winning the silver medal at the 2019 European Wheelchair Rugby Championships.
The Danes enter this year’s Worlds on the back of impressive performances at June’s Canada Cup and August’s Musholm Cup. Entering the tournament ranked 7th, the Danes could make noise and surprise once the tournament moves into the crossover games. Their hi-lo and pick-and-roll style of play lends itself to fast-paced, collision-filled matches that should give the home fans plenty to cheer for!
Germany and Switzerland are also back at the World Championships for the first time since 2014 and 2006, respectively. Despite being the two lowest seeds in Pool A, either side could pull off an upset and push into the crossovers where thanks to the magic of sport – Anything Can Happen.
Rivalries Renewed in Pool Play
One of the most entertaining elements of wheelchair rugby is the matches between nations made rivals through geography or through their history in the sport. The pools for this year’s tournament mean that we’ll see several exciting rivalries renewed in the early days of the championship.
For fans in Europe or Asia/Oceania who don’t get a chance to watch a lot of South American wheelchair rugby, there will be an opportunity to see the exciting match-up between Brazil and Colombia on Day 2 of the competition. These two sides have traded wins and losses over the past few years and often play in intense, physical, and tight matches. The first meeting between two South American teams at a World Championships should be a real thriller.
As mentioned above, France edged Great Britain to take the European title back in February. This match-up is starting to become appointment viewing, with the two teams having played close matches in the lead-up to Worlds at both the Canada Cup and King Power Quad Nations. Bragging rights and crucial seeding should be at stake when Europe’s top two-ranked teams meet on Day 3.
There was no Asia/Oceania Zonal Championship this cycle, so fans were denied the opportunity to watch another chapter unfold in the rivalry between 2018’s finalists, Japan and Australia. The last time these two teams met at the World Championship, Japan celebrated in Sydney following a 62-61 overtime triumph in one of the best finals in the history of the sport. The battle between two of the top teams in the world is always entertaining and could significantly impact quarterfinal match-ups after the dust clears from their final Pool B match on Day 4.
Who Will Break Out?
The World Championships are indeed all about crowning a winner, but another exciting aspect of Worlds is seeing which teams and athletes break out and make the leap to a higher level of performance once they’re on the world stage.
It’ll be interesting to see which players seize the spotlight, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the stars on lower-ranked teams get their time to shine beyond their respective regions and zones.
There are also several exciting new talents competing in their first World Championship, and I’ll have an article on some debutants to watch out for later this week.
Connect with the Championship
Have thoughts or predictions for the tournament that you’d like to share? Which athlete or team do you think will break out in Vejle. Let me know on Twitter @wheelNbragg and follow the 2022 World Wheelchair Rugby Championship and World Wheelchair Rugby across all social media channels during the tournament.
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