![]() ![]() Canadian player Manon Rhéaume was the first woman ever to play in the National Hockey League in 1992, paving the way for others such as Shannon Szabados, also in Canada, or Florence Schelling in Switzerland. Ice hockey has the particularity, in contrast with other collective sports, that a female player can work her way into a male team as a goalkeeper - a position that requires more technical than physical skills. ![]() Cagigos is now working to become the number one goalkeeper but says she still "has a lot to learn and experience." I don't necessarily want to become a symbol but I'd just like to show that it's possible for little girls to play hockey," she told France 24 television network.Ĭagigos started skating at 3 (following in her big brother's footsteps) and enrolled in a sports study program at 14 before joining the Drakkars Under-17 elite squad in 2017 and then climbing the team's ranks step-by-step. "When I was little, I would have loved to see a girl playing on a top team and have her as a role model. Charlotte Cagigos, 20, became the backup goalkeeper of the Drakkars, a team from northern France playing in Division 1, the second highest level of the ice hockey league, in August 2020. Only one woman in France skates a professional hockey team. It made her the first female footballer to play for the A team of a Japanese men's club.Ĭharlotte Cagigos, backup goalkeeper of the French Drakkars de Caen Women soccer players in other countries are also making their way into men's teams: professional Japanese striker Yuki Nagasato, who's currently part of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) club Racing Louisville FC, joined an amateur male team in 2020 when the pandemic interrupted the NWSL season. After some persistence, the young woman eventually got the green light and actually prompted the federation to launch a one-season pilot to assess whether women could compete in top-flight amateur men's football. The club asked the Dutch federation for a dispensation, which was turned down at first. ![]() In the Netherlands, teenage boys and girls have been allowed to play together in the same youth football team but after the age of 19, female players have to make a choice: join a team exclusively for women or a category B men's team (the reserve team of a club in the fourth division or lower).įokkema, however, wanted to play in VV Foarut's A team. In August 2021, Ellen Fokkema became the first woman in the Netherlands who was granted the right to play in a fourth-division senior men's soccer team in the changing the rules of Dutch football in the process, Trouw reports.įokkema had played for the VV Foarut club from the ages of 5 to 19. Rodríguez said she hoped her experience would "open doors" for other female athletes to take part in male competitions and that anyone should be able "to practice the sport they love, whether being a boy or a girl."Įllen Fokkema is playing in the VV Foarut's fourth-division senior men's soccer team It still took two months of intense lobbying from the club to the regional and national federations, and of rereading all the rules to check there was no restriction before she became part of the team. He accepted.Īt her first training, Rodríguez impressed the other players with her "speed, technique and agility." It didn't take long for the club's president to suggest she join the team. She then contacted the club's coach José Maria Valerio, asking to train with the team just to stay in shape. The athlete moved to Albacete last summer to follow her husband Ruben Martinez, a professional soccer player but discovered there was no professional female handball club in Albacete. Last month, the club announced it had been granted permission from the Castilla La Mancha Handball Federation to register Rodríguez as a new member of the team, which currently plays in the country's second division. ![]() The 31-year-old professional athlete took part in her first game with the Club Balonmano Albacete on November 7, scoring a goal when she entered the court at the 21st minute. Mireia Rodríguez recently became the first woman in the history of handball to play in a senior men's match in Spain's central region of Castilla La Mancha, La Vanguardia reports. Mireia Rodríguez and her teammates of the Club Balonmano Albacete ![]()
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