Host nation Spain Champions New Zealand | No. of nations 16 Matches played 32 | |
Dates 2002-05-13 – 2002-05-25 | ||
The 2002 Women's Rugby World Cup was the second World Cup fully sanctioned by the sports governing body the International Rugby Board (IRB). The tournament was held in Barcelona, Spain. The format was the same as the previous tournament and again 16 nations competed.
Contents
For the first time a pre-tournament qualification match took place to decide Asia's second representative but other than that all competitors took part by invitation. 14 of the 16 teams taking part were the same as in 1998 but two lowest ranked European teams (Sweden and Russia) were replaced by teams from Asia (Japan) and Oceania (Samoa).
The competition was won by defending champions, New Zealand.
World Cup Tournament
Although not strictly speaking a knock-out as – in theory – a team losing a game on Day 1 could still qualify dependent on results on Day 2, in practice this was a complex tournament that is best understood by means of the following graphics. Note that this should not be taken to imply that the draw for any round of games was predetermined – each successive round was drawn using seedings and rankings based on previous matches:
Ranking matches 5–8
Teams knocked out in the Cup quarter-finals
Ranking matches 9–16
Teams defeated in the first round of pool matches
Ranking matches 13–16
Teams defeated in the first round of the ranking matches for 9–16