Rugby World Cup

The women's Rugby World Cup is the women's rugby union world championship which is organised by World Rugby. The first Rugby World Cup for women was held in 1991, but it was not until the 1998 tournament that the tournament received official backing from the International Rugby Board (IRB, now World Rugby); by 2009, the IRB had retroactively recognized the 1991 and 1994 tournaments and their champions. Normally, the tournament is held every four years; it was moved forward in 2017 so that the competition could be held in the year before the Commonwealth Games. The 2021 tournament was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but still marketed as the 2021 Rugby World Cup. Three countries have won the women's Rugby World Cup since its establishment, with New Zealand having won the tournament a record six times. The championship was previously branded as the Women's Rugby World Cup. As part of an effort to promote greater parity between the championship and its men's counterpart, the Rugby World Cup, World Rugby announced in 2019 that the women's championship would be marketed as the Rugby World Cup with no gender designation beginning in 2021.