The FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup is an international

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of ' (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. Initially the tournament was played in the year following the Olympic Games, but since 1991 the World Cup has been awarded in the year preceding the Olympic Games. The current champion is

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, which won its fifth title at the 2019 tournament. The current format of the competition involves 12 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, competing in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks. The World Cup (with exception of the 2019 edition) acts as the first qualification event for the following year's

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...

with the top two teams qualifying. The 13 World Cup tournaments have been won by five different national teams.

have won five times. The other World Cup winners are

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

, with four titles;

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, with two titles; and

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

(as

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

), with one title each. This tournament should not be confused with the FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship.

History

Origins

The World Cup was created in 1965 with the purpose of partially filling the gap between the two most important volleyball tournaments, the

and the

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

, which take place in alternating 4-year cycles. The establishment of a third international competition would leave only one in every four years with no major events. The World Cup has a smaller entry than the World Championship, with at most 12 teams. The World Cup was to be held in the year following the Olympic Games. The first two tournaments were for men's volleyball only; in 1973, a women's tournament was also introduced. Originally, each tournament had a different host, but in 1977 the competition was transferred to

on a permanent basis. In the 1990s, the installment of annual international events such as the World League and the

Grand Prix Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural Grands Prix), is a name sometimes used for competitions or sport events, alluding to the winner receiving a prize, trophy or honour Grand Prix or grand prix may refer to: Arts and entertainment ...

made the original motivations for the creation of the World Cup obsolete. Instead of letting a consolidated event disappear for lack of interest, the FIVB decided to change its format in 1991: it would be held in the year preceding, and not following, the Olympic Games; and it would be considered a first international Olympic qualification tournament, granting the winner a direct berth in the games. This move saved the competition. The possibility of securing an early berth for the Olympic Games, thus avoiding extraneous and in some cases tight continental qualification procedures, became a consistent motivation for the national federations to participate in the World Cup. In 1995, the number of Olympic spots granted at the competition was increased to three, as it remained until 2011. In 2015 the number of spots was only two again.

2023 edition

With the change of qualification for the Paris Summer Olympics, the 2023 World Cup will serve as one of the three Olympic qualification tournaments. Only eight teams will participate in this edition, with two tickets to the Paris Olympics for the top two teams.

Winners

The Women's World Cup has had not one great winner, like its counterpart for men's volleyball, but two:

and

. The first edition of the tournament was won by the

, the runner-up of 1973, took the gold in 1977. With the help of superstar player Lang Ping, China won the following two editions, in 1981 and 1985. Then Cuba stepped forward to begin its amazing World Cup career, winning its first title in 1989. With the tournament now as an Olympic qualifier, there followed three more consecutive victories, in 1991, 1995 and 1999. China came back in 2003 with a remarkably offensive team to win its third title.

won the 2007 edition with an outstanding record of eleven wins in eleven games and only two sets left to the opponents (both lost against

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

). Italy took a second win in a row in 2011, getting the better hand on United States and China. In 2015, China regained the title and then successfully defended it in 2019.

Competition formula

The World Cup is the most stable from all competition formulas employed by the FIVB. The following rules apply: *The competition takes place in Japan. *Twelve teams participate in each event: ten qualified, two per invitation. **

are always pre-qualified as host nation. **The winners of the FIVB World Championship in the previous year are automatically granted a spot. **The champion and runner-up of each continental tournament of that year are granted two spots. **Since the 1999 edition, only teams not yet qualified for the following Olympic Games can compete in the World Cup; hence hosts of the following year's Olympic Games are not allowed to compete. There was an exception for the 2019 World Cup, as the tournament will be hosted by Japan and the country will host the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

. *The competition is divided in exactly two phases (called "legs"). **Teams are divided in two pools. ***At the first leg, each team plays one match against all other teams in its pool. **At the second leg, each team plays one match against all the teams in the other pool. **Matches take place continuously through two weeks, with one-day breaks every two or three days. Each day, six matches are played. **Final standings are calculated by usual volleyball criteria: match points, numbers of matches won, sets ratio (the total number of sets won divided by the total number of sets lost), points ratio, direct confrontation. *The top two teams in overall standings, regardless of pools, qualify for the following

. *The tournament implements very tight line-up restrictions: only twelve players are allowed, and no replacement is permitted, even in the case of injuries.

Results summary

Medals summary

Debut of national teams

Participating nations

;Legend * – Champions * – Runners-up * – Third place * – Fourth place * – Did not enter / Did not qualify * – Hosts *= – More than one team tied for that rank *Q – Qualified for forthcoming tournament

All-time team records

(Based on W=2 pts and D=1 pts)

MVP by edition

* 1973 – * 1977 – * 1981 – * 1985 – *

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

– * 1991 – * 1995 – *

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

– *

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A ...

– *

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...

– *

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates ...

– *

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

– * 2019 –

Notes

References

External links

FIVB
{{Main world cups Recurring sporting events established in 1973 International volleyball competitions International women's volleyball competitions Quadrennial sporting events World cups