Spain's Valdemoro, Serbia's Vasic to perform FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup Draw

MIES (Switzerland) - International basketball legends Amaya Valdemoro of Spain and Sonja Vasic of Serbia will perform the draw for the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup, a 16-team tournament in Madrid from July 15 to July 23.

The draw gets underway on March 27 at 12:00 CET and local time at the Madrid Real Casa de las Postas​in Madrid, Spain.

Watch the Draw live

Viewers can tune into the live stream of the draw via the FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup website.

The participating countries in the 15th edition are Egypt and Mali from Africa; Argentina, Brazil, Canada and USA from the Americas; Australia, China, Japan and Chinese Taipei from Asia and Oceania; Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, and Spain (Hosts) from Europe.

Draw Principles

The participating teams have been distributed in four pots, based on the quality and geographical principles.

 Therefore, the pots are as follows:

Pot 1: USA, Canada, Lithuania, Spain Pot 2: France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic Pot 3: Australia, China, Japan, Chinese Taipei Pot 4: Argentina, Brazil, Mali, Egypt [/unordered]

Once the draw commences, the teams from each pot will be distributed in four groups and at the same time they will be assigned competition numbers.

Teams from the same continent/region should be evenly distributed across the groups.

A maximum of two European Teams can be drawn in the same group.

A straight draw will be applied, except in the case of Pot 4 where the teams from the Americas cannot be drawn in the groups which already have a team from the continent and will therefore go in to the first available group without a team from Americas.

Legends on stage

Valdemoro won many fans to the game in Spain with her captivating displays for the national team 

Valdemoro and Vasic are among the most fiery, talented and respected players in the history of the game, icons that lifted their countries to the top of the women's game.

Valdemoro played for Spain's youth teams before spending a couple of decades with the senior side. The MVP of the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2007 in Italy, Valdemoro reached the podium at the event on five occasions, including her last participation in 2013 when Spain captured the title in France. She led Spain into the Quarter-Finals of both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and to third at the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2010 in the Czech Republic.

Vasic won her second EuroBasket Women in 2021 and was named tournament MVP

Vasic was a star youth player for Serbia and also with the senior team. She was a leading player in numerous Serbia teams, including the ones that won FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2015 and claimed 2016 Olympic bronze. When Serbia reached the top of the podium at her last EuroBasket in 2021, Vasic was named the tournament MVP.

FIBA