Two months from now, defending women’s IFAF European champions Great Britain will be poised to make their debut at The World Games against Italy on Thursday, August 14.

The Road to Chengdu began back in August with qualification assured in Finland at the 2024 IFAF Flag Football World Championships and has continued through series of tryouts and four monthly camps. The latest of those opportunities for head coach Jack Reed to fine tune the Chengdu challenge of the reigning European champions came at Loughborough University.

“It was our best weekend yet,” said coach Reed, a native of Leominster, Massachusetts, who has stepped up from the offensive coordinator role he held at the past two IFAF tournaments. “I’m excited about our team. We took huge steps towards coming together as a team and creating cohesiveness.”

Great Britain has plans to expose what Reed describes as a versatile and talented squad to a competitive tournament atmosphere in July before arriving in China where they will hold a training camp prior to that opening game against Italy. Group games follow against defending champion Mexico and Japan, who won the bronze medal at the world championships in Finland.

“We’re better than we were last year in terms of talent,” added Reed, whose roster includes seven players who were among the group that lost a heartbreaker to Japan in Finland, suffering knockout round defeat when a pass fell incomplete on the last play of the game.

Currently ranked fifth in the IFAF Flag Football World Rankings, Great Britain were crowned European champions in 2023, posting an 8-1 record, beating Italy, Denmark, Finland, France (twice), Sweden, and Ukraine on the way to a 26-19 final victory over Spain. In addition to traveling to China for The World Games, GB will defend that European title at this year’s continental championship in Paris in September.