FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup
Current season, competition or edition: 2015 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup
|
|
| Sport | Volleyball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1973 |
| Inaugural season | 1973 |
| CEO |
 Ary Graça
|
| No. of teams | 12 |
| Continent | International (FIVB) |
| Most recent champion(s) |
 China (4th title) |
| Most titles |
China Cuba (4 titles each) |
| Official website | FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup |
The FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup is an international volleyball competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (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, which won its fourth title at the 2015 tournament.
The current format of the competition involves 12 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation Japan, competing in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks. The World Cup acts as the first qualification event for the following year's Olympic Games with the top two teams qualifying.
The 12 World Cup tournaments have been won by five different national teams. China and Cuba have won four times each. The other World Cup winners are Italy with two titles; and Japan and Russia as (Soviet Union), with one title each.
The World Cup was created in 1965 with the purpose of partially filling the gap between the two most important volleyball tournaments, the Olympic Games and the World Championship, 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.
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