The First Women's World Championship
March 1953. Santiago 1953, played outdoors in a packed stadium
Women had been playing basketball for 60 years, but there was still no world championship for them. In March 1953, FIBA held the first one in Santiago, Chile.
Ten teams took part, eight from the Americas and two from Europe, France and Switzerland. Games were played outdoors at the Estadio Nacional, which held more than 20,000 people, and the occasional rain made the court slippery. Crowds were so big that, according to FIBA, even Chile's president, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, sometimes had trouble finding a seat. Each game had two halves of 16 minutes.
The United States lost one game, 29 to 23 to Brazil, then beat the hosts Chile 49 to 36 in their final game to take the title. Chile won silver and France bronze. France's Anne-Marie Colchen led all scorers with 19.2 points per game.
What changed
Women's national teams now had a world title to play for, 23 years before women's basketball joined the Olympics. It gave federations a reason to build women's teams and a stage to measure them against the best.