A non-Olympic year means a number of world championships in Olympic sports and ranking events to be counted towards qualification for 2028 Los Angeles. Here’s a rundown of what to expect at international level when it comes to Olympic sports that will interest Team SA athletes this year.
AQUATICS
A variety of World Cup events across all aquatics disciplines will get going early in 2025, with all athletes building up towards the World Aquatics Championships, taking place from 11 July to 3 August 2025 in Singapore. Water polo will start the event and artistic swimming takes place in the second week, with swimming and diving the last two disciplines.
ARCHERY
The World Archery Championships are in Gwangju, Republic of Korea, from 5-12 September.
ATHLETICS
After a thrilling athletics programme at Paris 2024, it’s worth seeing how the champions and their nearest rivals fare throughout 2025.
The World Athletics Indoor Championships are heading to Nanjing in the People’s Republic of China from 21-23 March.
The World Athletics Championships are in Tokyo, with the National Stadium playing host four years after hosting the Olympics. Those championships run from 13-21 September.
A vast array of stars will be in Diamond League action, and before the worlds the Diamond League Finals take place in Zurich on 27-28 August, with the 14 meets prior held between April and August.
BADMINTON
Xiamen in the People’s Republic of China will host the 16-nation Sudirman Cup Finals from 27 April to 4 May, with the hosts also the defending champions.
The BWF World Championships are heading back to Paris from 25-31 August.
The BWF World Tour Finals will then take place in Hangzhou in the People’s Republic of China from 10-14 December.
CANOEING
There will be World Championships and World Cups held across the International Canoe Federation’s 10 disciplines between April and November.
Among the key dates to look out for, the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships are in Milan, Italy, from 20-24 August.
The ever-thrilling slalom will then take centre stage in October, with the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships in Penrith, Australia, from 1-6 October.
CRICKET
The T20 format that will be on show at the 2028 Olympics starts with the SA20 in South Africa from 9th January to 8th February.
Then it’s the Indian Premier League, from 14 March to 25 May with some of the world’s biggest men’s stars competing in India. The Women’s Premier League starts in India on 21 February and concludes on 16 March.
After that, the two best men’s Test nations will compete in the ICC World Test Championship Final at Lord’s in London from 11-15 June, with South Africa likely to play Australia.
The highlight of the women’s calendar falls in September and October with the Women’s Cricket World Cup, a 50-over tournament.
CYCLING
The 2025 UCI BMX Racing World Championships will take place from 28 July to 3 August 2025 in Copenhagen.
The freestyle BMXers will head to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia for the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships from 4-8 November.
The highlight of the MTB year is the fortnight-long UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, with Valais in Switzerland staging the event from 1-14 September.
Road fans will want to put the dates of the Grand Tours in their calendars. In the men’s, it all starts with the Giro d’Italia from 9 May to 1 June. The Tour de France is from 5-27 July and the Vuelta a España is 23 August to 14 September.
The women’s major tours start with La Vuelta Feminina from 5-11 May, the Giro d’Italia Women is 6-13 July and the Tour de France Femmes 26 July to 3 August.
All that falls before the UCI Road World Championships from 21-28 September, where history will be made as Kigali in Rwanda becomes the first-ever African host of the worlds.
The 2025 track season is all building up towards the 2025 UCI Track World Championships in Santiago, which will stage the event 22-26 October.
Before that, the first round of the UCI Track Nations Cup will take place in the first part of the year.
FENCING
Fencers will be going for gold in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 20-30 July when the FIE World Championships take place.
That falls after the end of the FIE Fencing World Cup season, which is already under way and set to conclude in Madrid, on 23-25 May.
GYMNASTICS
The 2025 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series has six stops between February and April, while the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup runs from April to July. There are also six Trampoline World Cup events between February and October, while all three disciplines have world championships in 2025.
First, 2016 Olympic hosts Rio de Janeiro will stage the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships from 20-24 August. It’s over to Asia for the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, which are taking place in Jakarta, from 19-25 October.
And then in Europe, the FIG Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships will be held in Pamplona, Spain, from 6-9 November.
HOCKEY
The FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup takes place in Porec, Croatia, from 3-9 February for both men’s and women’s teams.
Both the men’s and women’s FIH Pro League seasons are already under way and conclude on 29 June, with nine nations competing for glory in both competitions.
JUDO
Grand Slam events start in February with continental championships then being held around the world in late April. That is all building up to the IJF World Senior Championships, taking place from 13-20 June in Budapest.
RUGBY SEVENS
The 2024-25 SVNS season is already under way with two events down in 2024 and five more to come in 2025, starting with Perth on 2-26 January and ending with Los Angeles on 3-4 May.
SAILING
The Ocean Race Europe starts on 10 August in Kiel, Germany, while the SailGP season has already started and is heading to Auckland first in 2025, on 18-19 January, and concluding in Abu Dhabi on 29-30 November.
There are a whole host of championships throughout the year, including the 470 World Championships in Gdynia, Poland from 6-14 June.
SHOOTING
Malakasa, Greece, and Cairo, Egypt, will stage the ISSF World Championships in shotgun and in rifle/pistol respectively.
The ISSF World Championship Shotgun runs in Greece from 8-19 October before the ISSF World Championship Rifle/Pistol in Egypt from 6-16 November.
SKATEBOARDING
The World Skateboarding Tour competition is heading to three continents in 2025, and will kick off in June in Rome. The tour then heads to Washington DC in September and Fukuoka in late November.
The summer X Games include skateboarding, with Sacramento confirmed as hosts for three years running starting from 2025, with that edition running 22-24 August.
SPORT CLIMBING
The IFSC World Cup season starts in China in April before heading to Indonesia, Brazil and USA among other nations, with climbers building up towards the IFSC World Championships, taking place 21-28 September in Seoul, the Republic of Korea.
SQUASH
Squash is one of five new sports at LA2028 and its biggest event of 2025 is the WSF World Cup taking place in Chennai, India, from 9-14 December.
Squash will also feature at The World Games in Chengdu, China, from 7–17 August.
TABLE TENNIS
From 17-25 May 2025 the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals will be held in Doha, Qatar.
World Table Tennis have expanded their Grand Smashes, with four events taking place across the globe.
The four majors will be: Singapore Smash from 30 January to 9 February, the United States Smash in Las Vegas from 3-13 July, the Europe Smash in Malmö, Sweden, for 14-24 August, and the China Smash in Beijing from 25 September to 5 October.
TAEKWONDO
The 2025 World Taekwondo Championships are taking place in Wuxi, China, from 24-30 October.
Before that, the World Taekwondo Grand Prix series is heading to the USA, Thailand and Republic of Korea, with the Grand Prix final location TBD.
TRIATHLON
The World Triathlon Championship Series season starts earlier than usual with the opener in Abu Dhabi on 14-15 February. That competition concludes with the Championship Finals on 15-19 October in Wollongong, Australia.
VOLLEYBALL
After the indoor volleyball club season concludes, attention switches to the FIVB Volleyball Nations League for both the men and women. The women’s Nations League starts on 4 June and finishes on 27 July, with the men’s Nations League under way on 11 June and concluding on 3 August.
Serbia will then look to defend their world title at the FIVB Women’s Volleyball World Championship in Thailand from 22 August to 7 September, before the men’s champions Italy chase a fifth title in the FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship in the Philippines from 12–28 September.
The beach volleyball season is headlined by the men’s and women’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, being held in Adelaide, from 14 to 23 November.
WEIGHTLIFTING
Both the European and African Championships take place in April, with the Asian Championships in May, and both the Oceania and Pan-American Championships in July.
All that will be a prelude to the event of the year in weightlifting, the IWF World Championships, taking place in Forde, Norway, from 3-12 October.
WRESTLING
The 2025 season for wrestling will be geared around preparations for the UWW Seniors World Championships in Croatia, with Zagreb staging the event from 13-21 September.
The Ranking Series, which are the main international tournaments, have four stops from February to July.