Rugby Sevens is a variant of Rugby Union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. A World University Championship sport since 2004, Rugby Sevens has also featured as an optional sport at the Summer Universiade. 

The History of Rugby Sevens in FISU

Rugby Sevens entered the programme of the FISU World University Championships in 2004 with a first edition organised in Beijing (CHN), which welcomed 159 rugby players from nine countries. Since then, the number of participants has constantly grown, as well as the number of participating countries, reaching the record number of 273 participants from 17 countries at the 2010 edition hosted by the Portuguese University Sport Federation in Porto. The 5th World University Rugby Sevens Championship was organised in the city of Brive-la-Gaillarde, France, one of the homelands of rugby.