Jessy Ringelstein made history this weekend when she took charge of the IFAF Europe U19 Championship game between Great Britain and France.
Having already worn the white hat earlier this year for an IFAF Women’s European Championships game in Germany, the Hamburg native became among the first female officials to referee a game of this magnitude at international level. GB and France was the first of the weekend’s six U19 games playing for seventh place in the final standings in Coventry. France won the game, 21-7.
“For me it was a really great honor to work this game,” says Jessy. “It’s big, not just for me, but for all female officials in our sport. I’ve been working for a long time to get here and gained a lot of experience as a referee in local games. All the little steps over the last years got me to this game.
“In the Women’s World Championship in Finland it was about fifty-fifty male to female officials, which was good, and we had one other female head referee and she was from the U.S., so I was the only European, which is quite big. That was the first step towards this game because IFAF saw my potential and now here I am this week.”