The Beginnings

It did not take long for basketball’s influence to spread to the four corners of the globe following the invention of the game by Dr. James Naismith in 1891 at the Springfield YMCA.

By 1893 basketball had reached Europe and the first game is credited to have taken place at a YMCA gym in the Rue de Trévise in Paris, France. In 1909, the Russian club Mayak St Petersburg took on a YMCA team from the USA in what is believed to be the first ever international game.

It took a while longer for any structure in the international game to emerge, but in 1932 the Federation International de Basketball Amateur (FIBA) was formed in order to create a unified set of rules and organise international competition.

		The 1952 European Championship for Women in Moscow

The focus of the fledgling federation was the development of the men’s game and in 1935 the first European Championship for Men was staged in Geneva, Switzerland. Just one year later, FIBA scored a major success when basketball was included as an official sport at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Although the men’s game was top priority, FIBA did not neglect women’s basketball. The Women’s Commission was one of the first FIBA Commissions to be created (after the Technical Commission – responsible for safeguarding and developing the official rules) and competitions for women soon appeared.

In his book ‘The Basketball World’, former FIBA Secretary General Dr. William Jones explained the rationale for organising the first European Championship for Women in 1938.

The main reason was the success of the first two men’s editions which had been held in 1935 and 1937. However, there were also other forces at work.

“The success of the first two European Championships for men prompted Count G. A. di San Marzano to attempt the organization of a similar European Championship for girls,” wrote Dr. Jones.

“It is interesting to note that it was San Marzano who took this initiative as he was himself a rather misogynous old bachelor, but he was probably unable to withstand the pressure brought to bear on him and on the Italian Basketball Federation by a group of Roman young ladies who were desperately in love with basketball.”

Whatever the motivation, the championship attracted five teams and proved to be a success, if anything for the mode of dress chosen by the players. The Lithuanian, Polish and French teams all wore shorts,  “creating quite a sensation”, Jones noted.

It took another 12 years for the next European Championship for Women to be organised, due to World War II and the inability for FIBA to find a potential host in 1948. But by 1950, women’s events were a firm fixture in the FIBA calendar.

The Rules

One of FIBA’s first tasks as an international federation was to unify the basketball rules and this was achieved in 1932. The rules for the women’s game took a little longer to come together and at the meeting of the World Congress in 1952 it was noted that different rules were applied to the women’s game in North America, South America and Europe.

It was essential that the rules be unified for the upcoming World Championship for Women. The Women’s Commission proposed that only one amendment to the men’s rules be made for Women: playing time would be four 10-minute quarters. This was adopted by the Congress.

By 1960 it was obvious that the women’s game had advanced to the point where it was no longer necessary to have separate rules. From then onwards, the rule book was given the title “Official Basketball Rules for Men and Women”.

The only amendment to the women’s rules since 1960 came in 2004 when it was decided that women would play with a slightly smaller ball, size 6 instead of 7 as in the men’s game.

The Competitions

FIBA were quick to implement a European Championship for Women following the men’s event and the same proved to be true of the international club competitions.

The European Cup of Champion Clubs was created in 1958 and the women’s equivalent (the European Cup for Women’s Champions Clubs) followed suit just one year later.

After Italy’s win at the inaugural European Championship for Women in 1938, the dominance in the women’s game quickly shifted east, most notably to the Soviet Union.

The Soviets made their first appearance at the 1950 European Championship and would go on to win gold 21 times in the next 22 competitions, the only blip on that remarkable record coming in 1958 when they finished second to Bulgaria.

European club competition was no different. Soviet side Daugawa Riga dominated the early years as they rolled to 16 titles in the first 21 editions of the competition.

		The USSR womens national team

No reference to the Soviets’ dominance of the game can be made without mention of Uljana Semjonova. The 213 cm center was the talisman of both the Daugawa Riga and the national team in her career which spanned three decades.

Making her debut as a 13 year old in 1965, Semjonova won two Olympic, three World Championship and 10 European Championship gold medals. Perhaps even more remarkably, she never lost an international game with her country.

The Transition

Eastern dominance on the women’s game began to wane in the 1980’s. While basketball was still effectively an amateur sport, Italian clubs began to offer money and soon attracted the top players from around Europe.

Sisport Fiat became the first club side not from either the Soviet Union or Bulgaria to win the European Cup for Women’s Champions Clubs in 1980, and A.S Fiorella Viacenza would go on to win the title five times between 1983 and 1988.

The Soviet’s grip on national team competition took longer to break and it was political circumstances (rather than sporting) and the break-up of the Soviet Union which ended their run of successive European Championship victories.

The last hurrah for the Soviets proved to be the 1992 Olympic Games, where the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) won the gold medal in the women’s basketball tournament.

In 1993, Spain took advantage of the Soviet absence to win a women’s European crown.

While the Soviet Union no longer dominates European basketball, former Soviet states Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania have all won EuroBasket Women titles since 1995. However, medals for France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Yugoslavia and the Slovak Republic demonstrate a field which is more open and competitive than ever.