Wheelchair Basketball World Championship facts for kids
| Sport | Wheelchair basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1973 M / 1990 W |
| Country | IWBF members |
| Continent | IWBF (International) |
The IWBF World Wheelchair Basketball Championship is a super exciting international competition where the best men's and women's national teams from around the world compete in wheelchair basketball. It's like the World Cup for wheelchair basketball! The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) organizes this big event.
Contents
About the Championship
This championship brings together national teams from countries all over the world. They play to see who is the best in wheelchair basketball. For many years, from 1973 to 2006, the championship was known as the Gold Cup.
How It Started
The very first unofficial World Wheelchair Basketball Championship for men happened in 1973. It was held in Bruges, Belgium. A team from Great Britain won this first championship. A famous player named Philip Craven, who later became the President of the International Paralympic Committee, was on that winning team.
The first official World Championship, still called the Gold Cup, also took place in Bruges, Belgium, in 1975.
Who Has Won?
The men's world championship has been won many times by the United States, with 7 titles. Australia and Great Britain have each won twice. Israel, France, and Canada have each won once.
The women's world championships started later, in 1990. In the first six women's championships, Canada won four titles, and the United States won two.
Past Winners
This table shows the winners of the World Wheelchair Basketball Championship for both men and women. The year 1973 is marked with an asterisk (*) because it was an unofficial championship.
| Number | Year | Host City | Men's Winner | Women's Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1973* | Bruges (Belgium) |  Great Britain |
– |
| 2 | 1975 | Bruges (Belgium) |  Israel |
– |
| 3 | 1979 | Tampa (United States) |  United States |
– |
| 4 | 1983 | Halifax (Canada) | United States |
– |
| 5 | 1986 | Melbourne (Australia) | United States |
– |
| 6 | 1990 | Bruges (Belgium) |  France |
– |
| Saint-Étienne (France) | – | United States |
||
| 7 | 1994 | Edmonton (Canada) | United States |
– |
| Stoke Mandeville (Great Britain) | – |  Canada |
||
| 8 | 1998 | Sydney (Australia) | United States |
Canada |
| 9 | 2002 | Kitakyushu (Japan) | United States |
Canada |
| 10 | 2006 | Amsterdam (Netherlands) | Canada |
Canada |
| 11 | 2010 | Birmingham (United Kingdom) |  Australia |
United States |
| 12 | 2014 | Incheon (South Korea) | Australia |
– |
| Toronto (Canada) | – | Canada |
||
| 13 | 2018 | Hamburg (Germany) | Great Britain |
 Netherlands |
| 14 | 2022 | Dubai (United Arab Emirates) | United States |
Netherlands |
* Unofficial Championship
Medal Count
This section shows which countries have won the most medals (gold, silver, and bronze) at the World Wheelchair Basketball Championships.
Men's Medals (1973-2022)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States |
7 | 5 | 1 | 13 |
| 2 | Great Britain |
2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| 3 | Australia |
2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 4 | France |
1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| 5 | Canada |
1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Israel |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | Netherlands |
0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 8 |  Iran |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 Sweden |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
 Turkey |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Totals (10 entries) | 14 | 14 | 14 | 42 | |
Women's Medals (1990-2022)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada |
5 | 0 | 2 | 7 |
| 2 | United States |
2 | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| 3 | Netherlands |
2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 4 |  Germany |
0 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| 5 |  China |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Great Britain |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 7 | Australia |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Totals (7 entries) | 9 | 9 | 9 | 27 | |
Other Wheelchair Basketball Events
Besides the World Championship, there are many other important wheelchair basketball events around the globe:
- Wheelchair basketball at the Summer Paralympics
- Wheelchair Eurobasket
- European Wheelchair Basketball Championship
- IWBF U23 World Wheelchair Basketball Championship
- Africa Wheelchair Basketball Championship
- IWBF Champions Cup
- André Vergauwen Cup
- Willi Brinkmann Cup
- IWBF Challenge Cup
- Kitakyushu Champions Cup
- Wheelchair Basketball Intercontinental Cup June 2023 in Turkey.
- NCC 2023 International Köln. Nations Cup Cologne 2023 Continental Cup
- 2023 Easter Tournament Wheelchair Basketball - The Easter Tournament Wheelchair Basketball - fifteenth edition in 2023. Six teams - between 7-9 April in Belgium.
- May 3, 2023. TOKYO — Official 3×3 wheelchair basketball tournaments, the first of their kind in Japan, have been held since last autumn.
- 2023 Osaka Cup - from February 10-12, 2023, in Osaka, Japan.
