The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has participated today in the presentation ceremony of the U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup that will be held in the city of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares and Torrejón de Ardoz in July. “The sporting event that makes us most excited”, as Almeida explained, because “we have been working on it since 2020”, in addition to coinciding with the centenary of the Spanish Basketball Federation.
Accompanied by the delegate for Culture, Tourism and Sports, Andrea Levy, and the Councilor for Sports, Sofía Miranda, the mayor recalled the sporting successes achieved last summer by the Spanish men’s and women’s basketball teams “where you showered us with all kinds of joys in all kinds of categories.” Likewise, he has pointed out that “the golden age of Spanish sport cannot be understood without basketball”, a sport that also stands out for its “human values and camaraderie”.
On the other hand, the mayor has valued the “institutional collaboration” in the field of sport with the purpose of reaching the whole of society, “united in the promotion of sport and its values” both from grassroots practice to the professionals.
Almeida stressed that “2023 is going to be a very important year for the city of Madrid in terms of sport” since, as he recalled, in addition to the major national and international events, as well as the classics that will be held at the city, there are also “important developments such as an ice hockey world cup or a badminton world circuit”.
Teams from the five continents will participate in the tournament. According to the teams classified so far, Europe will be represented by Lithuania, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic; Mali and Egypt will be the African teams; China, Japan and Chinese Taipei will compete for Asia; USA, Canada, Argentina and Brazil will represent the American continent, and the Australian team completes the competition.
Basketball is the third sport in number of licenses in the Community of Madrid, after soccer and golf, with 77,594 federated members, of which 49,556 are male and 28,038 female. In addition, it has 498 clubs, a figure only surpassed by the king of sports.
