Hostilities will commenced today in the 18th edition of FIBA’s premier international tournament for women’s national basketball teams, in Tenerife, Canary Islands in Spain.
The World Cup, which will end next Sunday, has 16 national teams including D’tigress of Nigeria, battling for supremacy.
These 16 teams qualified for this World Cup through various ways.
Spain, the host nation, was the first to qualify. The Spaniards qualified on December 16, 2014, when Spain was announced to have won the bid to host the World Cup over Israel.
The next team that qualified was the United States of America, who qualified by winning the gold medal of the female basketball event of the 2016 Rio de Janiero Olympic Games.
Five teams qualified from 2017 Euro-Basket Women Championship. They were Belgium, France, Greece, Latvia and Turkey.
Asia produced four teams, who qualified through the Women’s Asia Cup. The qualified teams are South Korea, Australia, China and Japan.
Canada, Argentina and Puerto Rico qualified through Women’s AmeriCup.
Africa’s two representatives emerged through the 2017 Women’s Afro basket. D’Tigress of Nigeria qualified as the winners while Senegal qualified as the runners-up.
The 16 participating teams are in four groups of four teams each for the on-going group stages of the World Cup.
South Korea, who were runners-up in 1967 and 1979 are in group A alongside Greece, Canada and France.
In group B, 2006 Champions, Australia will battle Turkey, Argentina and D’Tigress of Nigeria.
Japan, who finished second in 1975 will lurk horns with two debutants Puerto Rico and Belgium as well as the host Spain, who emerged second in the last edition, in group C.
Group D, has another debutants, Latvia, defending and nine time champions, United States of America, Africa’s second representative, Senegal and 1994 runners-up, China.
D’Tigress will focus on qualifying from their group. Their best previous performance was a 16th place finish in 2006.
