Women's basketball in Bolivia is evolving

SUCRE (Bolivia) – The Bolivian Basketball Federation (BFF, for its Spanish acronym) begins a new stage full of hopes and dreams for the present and future of women's basketball which, according to its possibilities in the South American stage, has surpassed all expectations of the sport in this nation.

A local competition so that girls and young women could develop in basketball was crucial for the Federation, considering the women's national team's result in Bolivia in several regional games. The highlight of their existence? Attending the World Cup in Korea in the 1980’s. The most recent basketball achievements for the women are the Bronze Medal in the 2017 Juegos Bolivarianos of Santa Marta, Colombia; and the Silver Medal in the 2018 Juegos Suramericanos in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Despite these accolades at an international level, in the national competition and for some time now, they've constantly tripped over many hurdles. The most common of which is the limited pool of women athletes — both in number and in talent. Also, a very high percentage of abandonment of practices due to diverse motives. This reality made the FBB think that building a women's league was practically a utopia.

The success in the men’s league —known as Libobásquet— in 2014, as well as the success of the women's national team in several tournaments, caused the Federation, through its President Marco Arze and its Vice-President Gustavo Carmona, to design a competition for women's basketball in what they called the Bolivian Women’s Basketball League.

The tournament started in 2016 and faced many challenges, including their full-time availability. Many of them are students, workers and, in some cases, mothers, which makes it difficult for the clubs to schedule logistically the instances of traveling and overnight stays that the organization of a league require.

The first edition took place with eight team in a Final Four tournament. It had a relative success, because it didn't have the impact of men's basketball. The second edition saw a reduction to six teams and, due to financial problems, two of them left. One of them is the most recent champion, Club Universidad San Simón, of Cochabamba.

“The national teams have boosted the competition, as well as the men’s league. These are young women of the ages of 16 to 26, and we're putting all our chips in their future. Working with the young basketball generations is the best projection for FBB,” said to FIBA.basketball Sandro Patiño, coach of the Bolivian national women’s team and Club Universidad San Simón, the first champions of the league.

“The Odesur Games have helped women's basketball in Bolivia. Being able to play against national teams such as Paraguay, Chile and Argentina, in full venues and with 5,000 stranded outside the Evo Morales Ayma Coliseum in Quillacollo —which has a 12,000-person capacity— was very significant. Basketball woke up expectations in the country and Bolivia demonstrated that they were not just another Cinderella story. We also made significant work in the Juegos Bolivarianos in Colombia, where we defeated Venezuela and Paraguay, and we achieved the bronze medal against Chile. Convincing ourselves that we can face big teams has helped us quite a lot to understand that we can strive for more. We played against a powerhouse like Argentina and we were convinced that we could defeat them. All this scenario created an environment of expectation around women's basketball.”

For the current season, four clubs more of the elimination round (known as the Superior League, Libobásquet’s lower category), to be a part of this venture. The project was accepted by the four clubs and like this, in the 2019 cycle, the Bolivian Women's Basketball League will take place with eight teams distributed in two groups of four; where they will play in a round-robin format and will qualify the first two of each group, to then play against each other in the semi-final phases of the Playoffs. The best of three will move on and the players will then go on to another Playoff, under the same game format, to achieve the title.

“This new version of the league will begin in September and has already created a lot of expectations in many departments, to which Santa Cruz will also join. It will be much more interesting and with more teams participating,” added national team coach Patiño, who also stated: “Every pre-season I have more than 50 players knocking at my door, of all ages, who want to try out basketball. I open the doors to all, having so many girls involved and in love with basketball is something that had never happened in Bolivia, and it gives us hope for the present and the future of sports in this country.”

Another one of this league’s attractive aspects is that each team has the right to up to three foreign reinforcements, of which only two can be in the court at a time. This is something that FBB doesn’t consider to be technically ideal. However, they intent to consolidate with teams that have the core and the financial structure to develop tournaments of this important and be a solid project in the mid-term.

Something that also brought up an enormous expectation for women's basketball is having the Bolivian national team’s point guard, Romina Rodríguez Torrelio, playing in Spain’s second division team, Mataros.

“The fact that she plays in a European league means that as a country we're evolving in this sport. We're doing something well for the evolution of women's basketball, that didn't even attend international tournaments before,” pointed out the national coach.

The captain of the national women's team was able to climb the podium of the Juegos Suramericanos in Cochabamba and was an essential contributor of the green jersey’s silver medal, which was another reason for the Federation to decide to bolster the development of women's basketball.

“Basketball is growing little by little. Many of us give our all for this sport. Some of us left our jobs, others left their studies. But despite that, we have our hearts in it, we want to do it, and we want to give honor to our country’s name,” said to El Fulgor, a local newspaper, the 27-year-old player that's considered one of the best basketball players of her generation.

“Romina has been an instrumental factor for the women's league to rise and the establishment of a movement of players that dedicate entirely to play basketball. That's something that's complicated in this country, but when you love this sport, nothing limits you. If the Federation concentrates on this generation and increases competitions with a greater number of teams and games of high competition, I'm certain that Bolivia will get very far. There are players coming in with a good physical size, as well as talented players. I think that we're on the right path and Bolivia could be at the height of countries that are already very much recognized, like Argentina or Brazil,” added Patiño to FIBA.basketball.

The Federation had kick-started the year with Libomenor, a competition to develop basketball in Bolivia, and are now preparing a new and renovated edition of the women’s Libobásquet.

Marco Arze and Gustavo Carmona, FBB directives, lead these projects whose objective is to grow basketball in order to strengthen the leagues and the national teams for a country that is in constant growth.

FIBA