ARGENTINA
1950
When the tragic forties finished, the whole world began to recover its will to live.
Over the ruins of the most destructive war humanity has ever suffered, a new
world order arose.
The Yalta Conference, held by the leaders of the main Allied powers, meant in fact a tacit new
world distribution, which was carried out just as the war was ending. Stalin closed the Eastern
European borders; Germany was divided in two; and the death of the US President, Franklin D.
Roosevelt made things even worse as his successor, Henry Truman made the containment of
communism one of the mainstays of his platform. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) was founded which a few years later was answered by the formation of the Warsaw Pact.
The world had left conventional war behind and entered a period of localised wars and high
tension between the two controlling blocs, with the added threat of nuclear warfare. The “Cold
War” had begun.
The consequences of this new, world configuration was to be noticed for almost four decades and
no human activity (social, cultural, political, sporting) was free from its influence. Basketball was
not to be an exception as we will realise along our voyage through the history of the World
Championships.
The London Olympic Games, held in 1948, was the first major sporting event of the post-war era.
The hopes of the spectators and participants, along with the eagerness in the British capital,
whose ruins reminded them of the recent air raids, greatly exceeded the sporting level and
implied the first step towards recovery. In London, basketball (an Olympic sport since Berlin 1936)
fulfilled a major role, both on the court and in the number of entries (23 countries). Although the
title couldn't escape the USA who won all their games and crushed the French team in the final
(65-21) with Bob Kurland as MVP, the competition displayed the advancing level of basketball
which was to lead to the establishment of a World Championship for National Teams two years
later, to take place every four years.
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FUNDACIÓN PEDRO FERRÁNDIZ
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP