2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships – Women's event
| 2026 年坐式排球世界锦标赛 | |
|---|---|
| Tournament details | |
| Host nation |  China |
| City | Hangzhou |
| Dates | 10–17 July |
| Teams | 16 (from 4 confederations) |
| Venue(s) | 1 (in 1 host city) |
The 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships – Women's event is the 9th edition of the quadrennial world championship, contested by the senior women's national sitting volleyball teams, sanctioned by World ParaVolley. It will be held in Hangzhou, China from 10 to 17 July 2026, marking the first time the event is held in the country and the first time it will be held in East Asia.
16 teams will take part for the second time since the expansion in 2018, after withdrawals reduced the number of participating teams in the previous edition. Hosts China automatically qualified as hosts. Qualification took place between May and November 2025, with continental, world tournaments and rankings being used as qualification. France, Kenya and Thailand will make their debut.
The winners secure a ticket to the 2028 Summer Paralympics.
Brazil are the defending champions, after beating Canada 3–2 in the 2022 final in Sarajevo.
Host selection
After withdrawing from hosting the 2022 edition, Hangzhou was given the 2026 hosting rights instead.[1] Hangzhou had already been stated as the host on the events section of the World ParaVolley website but it was made official in July 2025. This marks the first time the event is held in the country and the first and second time it will be held in East Asia and Asia respectively.
Quotes
“We sincerely appreciate WPV’s trust and support in entrusting us with hosting the 2026 WPV Sitting Volleyball World Championship! We will go all out, prepare with great care, and strive to present a wonderful and successful sports event!”
— Lu Cailiang, president of ParaVolley Asia-Oceania and director of the World ParaVolley Development Centre, Hangzhou.
“After an extensive dialogue with the local organizing committee we are extremely happy to announce the contract signature for the 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships for Women and Men. Hangzhou has already successfully hosted this year’s ParaVolley Asia-Oceania Zonal Championships. The Worlds will kick us off into the qualification race for the LA28 Paralympics – so we can expect thrilling matches for the global crown and for the first tickets to LA28 to be awarded.”
— Juergen Schrapp, President of World ParaVolley.
“I am excited that the 2026 World Championships will be held in Hangzhou, China. It’s the first time the World Championships have been held in Asia, the first of our LA28 qualification events, and the first time that the challenge system will be used at this level of event. It is a great facility, so we expect some spectacular matches between our teams that have already been qualifying via their 2025 Zonal Championships.
— Stephen Giugni, Sport Director of World ParaVolley.
Preparations
- On 29 July 2025, the host contract was signed.[1]
Qualification
Slot allocation
- Host nation: 1
- 2024 Summer Paralympics champions: 1
- 2028 Summer Paralympics hosts: 1
- ParaVolley Asia Oceania: 2
- ParaVolley Africa: 2
- ParaVolley Americas: 2
- ParaVolley Europe: 3
- 2025 World Cup: 2
- World rankings: 2
16 teams will take part for the second time since the expansion in 2018, after withdrawals reduced the number of participating teams in the previous edition. Hosts China automatically qualified as hosts. Qualification took place between May and November 2025, with continental, world tournaments and rankings being used as qualification. A total of 21 countries took part in qualification.[2][3] As the United States took two spots after winning the 2024 Summer Paralympics and being the hosts of the 2028 Paralympics, one vacant spot was reallocated to the world rankings. Since only one team in the 2025 World Cup event hadn't already qualified, the remaining spot was once again was reallocated to the world rankings, bringing the number of teams qualifying via the world rankings to four.
Of the qualified teams, 10 took part in 2022. 2024 Paralympics host France, alongside Kenya and Thailand will make their debut, with the latter marking the first time a team from Southeast Asia qualified. Hosts, China, Japan and Netherlands return after missing out on 2022 due to Covid.
Of the absentees, former runners-up, Finland, failed to qualify after not entering any qualifier. Previous hosts Bosnia and Herzegovina and Poland missed out after their sporadic appearance in 2022. Similar to 2022, Russia was banned from taking part in qualification.
For the first time, Iran qualified for the third successive time.
The highest ranked team to not qualify was Poland, ranked 16th, while the lowest ranked team to qualify was Kenya, placed 17th.
Qualified teams
| Qualification | Host | Dates | Vacancies | Qualified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host nation | Hangzhou |
29 July 2025 | 1 | China
|
| 2024 Summer Paralympics |  Paris |
29 August – 7 September 2024 | None | |
| 2028 Summer Paralympics hosts |  Lima |
13 September 2017 | 1 |  United States
|
| 2025 Pan American Championships | Denver |
24–27 May 2025 | 2 |  Brazil.svg.png){kind=small} Canada
|
| 2025 Asia and Oceania Championships | Hangzhou |
9–14 June 2025 | 2 |  Iran Japan
|
| 2025 African Championships |  Nairobi |
4–9 July 2025 | 2 |  Rwanda Kenya
|
| 2025 European Championships |  Győr |
28 July – 2 August 2025 | 3 |  Italy Netherlands Ukraine
|
| 2025 World Cup | Fort Wayne |
12–18 October 2025 |  Germany
| |
| World rankings | 12 November 2025 |  Slovenia France Thailand Hungary
|
World rankings
The final 4 places belonged to the top 4 teams as per the sitting volleyball world rankings who had not yet qualified as of 12 November 2025.[4][5]
Top 20 in world rankings
| Qualified for the 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships | |
| Qualified for the 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships via World Ranking |
| Rank | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States
|
5,165 |
| 2 | Canada
|
4,554 |
| 3 | Brazil
|
4,358 |
| 4 | Italy
|
4,108 |
| 5 | Slovenia
|
3,091 |
| 6 | Germany
|
2,938 |
| 7 | China
|
2,800 |
| 8 | Rwanda
|
2,784 |
| 9 | Iran
|
2,411 |
| 10 | Ukraine
|
2,386 |
| 11 | Japan
|
1,440 |
| 12 | France
|
1,418 |
| 13 | Thailand
|
1,261 |
| 14 | Hungary
|
1,123 |
| 15 | Netherlands
|
1,042 |
| 16 |  Poland
|
1,039 |
| 17 | Kenya
|
900 |
| 18 |  South Korea
|
662 |
| 19 |  Mongolia
|
626 |
| 20 |  Finland
|
584 |
Summary of qualified teams
| Team | Qualification method | Date of qualification | Appearance(s)[6] | Previous best performance[a] | WR | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | First | Last | Streak | |||||
| China
|
Host nation | 6 February 2025[7] | 6th | 2002 | 2018 | 1 | Champions (2010, 2014) | 7 |
| United States
|
2028 Summer Paralympics hosts | 6th | 2006 | 2022 | 5 | Runners-up (2010, 2014, 2018) | 1 | |
| Brazil
|
2025 Pan American Championships | 27 May 2025 | 6th | 2006 | 6 | Champions (2022) | 3 | |
| Canada
|
4th | 2010 | 3 | Runners-up (2022) | 2 | |||
| Iran
|
2025 Asia and Oceania Championships | 13 June 2025 | 5th | 2000 | 3 | Eighth place (2000, 2002) | 9 | |
| Japan
|
14 June 2025 | 3rd | 2000 | 2018 | 1 | Fifth place (2000) | 11 | |
| Kenya
|
2025 African Championships | 9 July 2025 | 1st | Debut | 9 | |||
| Rwanda
|
3rd | 2018 | 2022 | 3 | Eighth place (2022) | 8 | ||
| Italy
|
2025 European Championships | 1 August 2025 | 3rd | 2018 | 3 | Fourth place (2018) | 4 | |
| Netherlands
|
8th | 1994 | 2018 | 1 | Champions (1994, 2000, 2002, 2006) | 15 | ||
| Ukraine
|
2 August 2025 | 9th | 1994 | 2022 | 9 | Third place (2010) | 10 | |
| Germany
|
2025 World Cup | 18 October 2025 | 7th | 1994 | 5 | Fourth place (2000) | 6 | |
| Slovenia
|
World rankings | 12 November 2025 | 7th | 2002 | 7 | Runners-up (2002) | 5 | |
| France
|
1st | Debut | 12 | |||||
| Thailand
|
1st | Debut | 13 | |||||
| Hungary
|
3rd | 2018 | 2022 | 3 | Eleventh place (2022) | 14 | ||
Venue
The World ParaVolley Development Centre in Hangzhou will be the venue. The venue hosted the 2017 and 2025 Asia and Oceania Sitting Volleyball Championships, plus the 2017 World ParaVolley Women's Super 6.
| Hangzhou | ||
|---|---|---|
| World ParaVolley Development Centre | ||
| Capacity: Unknown | ||
Format
16 teams are split into four groups of four, where every team advances to the Round of 16. In the Round of 16, teams who finished 1st play the teams that finished fourth, and the teams who finished 2nd play the teams that finished third. The eight winners advance to the Quarter Finals, while the eight losers play in a 9–16 classification bracket.
Group stage
- All times are local.
- The top four teams in each pool qualify for the final round.
- Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 match points for the winner, 0 match points for the loser
- Match won 3–2: 2 match points for the winner, 1 match point for the loser
Tiebreakers
- Number of matches won
- Match points
- Sets ratio
- Points ratio
- If the tie continues as per the point ratio between two teams, the priority is given to the team which won the match between them. When the tie in points ratio is between three or more teams, a new classification of these teams in the terms of points 1, 2, 3 and 4 is made taking into consideration only the matches in which they were opposed to each other.
Pool A
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | Pts | SW | SL | SR | SPW | SPL | SPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2 | Team 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 3 | Team 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4 | Team 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
Pool B
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | Pts | SW | SL | SR | SPW | SPL | SPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2 | Team 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 3 | Team 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4 | Team 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
Pool C
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | Pts | SW | SL | SR | SPW | SPL | SPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2 | Team 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 3 | Team 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4 | Team 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
Pool D
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | Pts | SW | SL | SR | SPW | SPL | SPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Team 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2 | Team 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 3 | Team 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4 | Team 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 | 0 | — |
Knockout stage
Bracket
| Round of 16 | Quarterfinals | Semi Final | Gold Medal match | |||||||||||
| 3rd place match | ||||||||||||||
Final standing
| Rank | Team |
|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 7 | |
| 8 | |
| 9 | |
| 10 | |
| 11 | |
| 12 | |
| 13 | |
| 14 | |
| 15 | |
| 16 |
| Qualified for the 2028 Summer Paralympics |
See also
Notes
- ^ Bold text indicates they hosted that edition.
References
- ^ a b "2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships host contract signed < World ParaVolley". 29 July 2025.
- ^ "240 days until the 2026 World Championships! < World ParaVolley". 12 November 2025.
- ^ "Qualified teams for the 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships - 12 November 2025 < World ParaVolley". 5 August 2025.
- ^ "Sitting Volleyball Rankings < World ParaVolley". Archived from the original on 21 December 2025.
- ^ World rankings
- ^ 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships history
- ^ "Qualification pathway for the 2026 Sitting Volleyball World Championships confirmed < World ParaVolleyWorld ParaVolley". Archived from the original on 15 March 2025.
External links
- [ Official website]
- World ParaVolley youtube channel