The International Basketball Federation announced on Tuesday that Guadalajara will stage an eight-team competition from 17-23 August, with the winner advancing in February 2028 to the qualifying events for the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games.
The women’s event, presented by FIBA as the ‘First stop on the road to LA 2028’, will bring together teams that failed to qualify for the next FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2026 in Berlin and are being given an immediate opportunity to rejoin the Olympic process.
Argentina, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Senegal and South Sudan are among the participants after missing out on the World Cup, while Mexico will enter the field in place of Colombia, which will not take part. The federation explained that the host country takes that place as the highest-ranked non-qualified team from the same continental region in the FIBA World Ranking for Women.
The tournament will be played at the Arena Astros, a venue in Guadalajara that staged international action earlier this year when it hosted several Basketball Champions League Americas games involving Astros Jalisco. For FIBA, that recent experience strengthens the choice of a venue that will open the road to Los Angeles 2028 for teams that, after missing out on the 2026 World Cup, can still “bounce back quickly and fuel their Olympic dreams”.
The draw will be held on 20 June at the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland. The eight nations will be divided into two groups of four, with a single round-robin format in which each country will play at least three games before the tournament moves into its decisive phase.
The top two teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals, and the winner of the final will secure a place in the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments 2028. For the rest, defeat in Guadalajara will not close the road to Los Angeles 2028, because all the teams will remain in the process and will be able to reach that same round through the Women’s Continental Cups 2027.
The allocation of places for those qualifiers will reserve two berths for the best teams from the AfroBasket tournament, four from the AmeriCup, four from the Asia Cup and six from EuroBasket.
The winner of the 2026 pre-qualifying tournament will occupy one place within its region’s quota rather than earning an additional berth. The remaining places for LA28 will be determined through the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in 2028, with 12 teams advancing. Those teams are expected to include the host nation, the United States, subject to approval by the FIBA Central Board, and the winner of the 2026 World Cup.
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