The Zimbabwe National Sevens team is afffectionately nicknamed the Cheetahs. The team is the sevens high performance team in the country and has taken part in the Sevens circuit and now takes part in selected HSBC Sevens circuit tournaments such as the HSBC Hong Kong series, HSBC Dubai series and the Cape Town tournaments. Outside of the World Rugby HSBC series Zimbabwe Cheetahs are actively involved in regional tournaments and international tournaments. The Cheetahs take part in the Zambia/ Lusaka Sevens every year , a tournament the Cheetahs have won intermittently for years with the latest outing in 2019 , the Cheetahs won Silver in Lusaka. The Cheetahs also take part in the Kenya Safari Sevens , Maseru Sevens , Stellenbosch Academy of Sport Sevens , Rome Sevens, World Rugby Challenger Series and the Kwese Sevens. The premier African Seven rugby tournament is the Africa Sevens Cup , a cup the Zimbabwe Cheetahs won in Monastir, Tunisia in 2018 to be crowned the African Champions. The Cheetahs have also taken part in Europe’s and Asian Sevens tournaments such as the Benidorn Sevens, the Rome Sevens , Amsterdam Sevens and the Tokyo Sevens. The Cheetahs have won the Best National Team in Zimbabwe Sports Awards several times.
The Zimbabwe Cheetahs have qualified for the Sevens Rugby World Cup five times the first time being in Hong Kong 1997 where we finished ranked 21st having bowed out at Bowl Quarterfinal stage. The second World Cup appearance was in Mar Del Plata Argentina in 2001 where we again finished 21st bowing out at the same stage as in 1997. The Cheetahs failed to qualify for Hong Kong 2005 but made amends in 2009 in Dubai where they improved their Tournament rankings to finish 17th having won the Bowl Trophy for the first time. In 2013, the Cheetahs World Cup tournament rankings In Moscow Russia improved further to 13th With the Cheetahs bowing out at the Plate quarterfinal stage. The World Cup tournament in San Francisco, USA saw the Cheetahs being ranked 23rd after losing in the Bowl quarterfinals. The Cheetahs were still in the repechage qualification stage for the Olympics before the cancellation of the Repechage games due to the deadly Coronavirus.
The pathway to the Zimbabwe Cheetahs team starts from grassroots with schools playing mini games of sevens rugby through to the junior and secondary schools where a national sevens team is selected to be the Junior Cheetahs team. thereafter opportunities are there to be selected into the Goshawks sevens set up And subsequently the Zimbabwe Cheetahs Sevens team.
