{"id":6305,"date":"2026-01-19T16:56:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=6305"},"modified":"2026-01-19T16:56:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:56:04","slug":"sara-cox-pioneering-female-rugby-union-referee-to-retire-from-internationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=6305","title":{"rendered":"Sara Cox: Pioneering female rugby union referee to retire from internationals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cox is also a regular official in Premiership Women&#8217;s Rugby as well as the men&#8217;s Prem. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She was awarded an MBE for services to rugby union in the 2023 King&#8217;s Birthday Honours list.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;d like to thank everyone who has supported my career, I wouldn&#8217;t be where I am without the amazing team around me and a group of fantastic colleagues both in England and when travelling around the world,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But most of all I&#8217;d like to thank my friends and family \u2013 particularly my mum who has always been my biggest supporter.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Being able to referee a game in Exeter, my home town, during last summer&#8217;s World Cup was a moment of real pride and amazing to do so in front of people who&#8217;ve championed me in my career but not always been able to travel to the far-flung places I&#8217;ve worked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I look forward to continuing to referee in our domestic leagues and hopefully continuing to encourage other women to see match officiating as a role for them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cox refereed the rugby sevens at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games &#8211; taking charge of the final at the Covid-19 delayed games in Tokyo after officiating in the first-ever Women&#8217;s Sevens tournament in Rio de Janeiro five years earlier. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"> &#8220;Sara has been a true pioneer for match officials and an inspiration to so many,&#8221; Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Her professionalism, resilience and passion for the game have broken barriers and demonstrated the path to top level match officiating for women across the world. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;She deserves huge plaudits for everything she&#8217;s achieved in her international career, and we are delighted that she will be continuing to contribute to the English game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cox is also a regular official in Premiership Women&#8217;s Rugby as well as the men&#8217;s Prem. She was awarded an MBE for services to rugby union in the 2023 King&#8217;s Birthday Honours list. &#8220;I&#8217;d like to thank everyone who has supported my career, I wouldn&#8217;t be where I am without the amazing team around me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}