FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship Preview & Betting Guide

Updated: 417 Volleyball

The FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship is a tournament that takes place every four years to determine the women's world champions of volleyball, Serbia is the reigning champion looking for a third consecutive win in 2026.

FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship Preview & Betting Guide
Andy Powell Content Editor

Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years - An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.

FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship

Founded in 1952, the FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship takes place every four years where a total of twenty-four countries compete to win the gold medal.

FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship Content

The first-ever tournament was staged in the Soviet Union and the hosts went on to win that tournament which was their first of what would be five gold medals.

The second tournament was staged in France and the third in Brazil and it was much of the same with the Soviet Union winning the first three tournaments.

2026 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship Preview

The 2026 FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship will be the twentieth edition of the tournament with the hosts yet to be named.

Serbia who won their first-ever championship in 2018 and followed that up four years late in 2022 will be looking for a third consecutive title, a feat that has only ever been done once when the Soviet Union won the first three tournaments.

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Brazil are yet to win this tournament, however, they have made four of the last eight finals, winning silver in all and have made the last four in six of the last eight season tournaments, they added a bronze in 2014 and could be a threat.

When looking at the hosts, the fact they are hosting is not something to read too much into, the Soviet Union (1952) and Japan (1967) are the two hosts to only ever go on to win the tournament they hosted and none since that Japan success in 1967.

FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship Past Winners

As already pointed out, Serbia will be looking to become only the second country to successfully win three on the bounce, the only other who achieved this feat was the Soviet Union (1952, 56 & 60) the only country to win three on the bounce.

Brazil has made four of the last eight finals, China went on a run of four finals in five tournaments but since 2002 has only made one final, however, was third at the last tournament and runner-up in the previous one so not one to rule out.

Season Champions Score Runners-Up
2022 Serbia 3–0 Brazil
2018 Serbia 3–2 Italy
2014 United States 3–1 China
2010 Russia 3–2 Brazil
2006 Russia 3–2 Brazil
2002 Italy 3–2 United States
1998 Cuba 3–0 China
1994 Cuba 3–0 Brazil
1990 Soviet Union 3–1 China
1986 China 3–1 Cuba

FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship Betting Tips

Remember that we have Volleyball Predictions all year round and not just for the FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship, there are club and international tournaments taking place almost on a weekly basis which means our volleyball tipsters are kept busy and will have tips nearly on a daily basis. Also, don't forget to bookmark the Best Volleyball Tipsters page, here we only highlight the best tipsters, those who over the past year have shown a profit with their volleyball predictions.

Favourite Statistics

Favourites have been strong in this tournament, over the last four championships, on average 81% of the favourites have gone on to be successful, at the 2018 tournament that number of 83%! These numbers may be high because there has been a large number of short-priced favourites, 190 of them priced up 1.10 or shorter and those priced up at those prices have a success rate of 96.32%. If you are looking for a favourite to oppose then those priced up at 1.50 or bigger have a 51% success rate and those at 1.70 or bigger have just a 40% success rate.

  • 2010: 81-104 (77.88%)
  • 2014: 85-102 (83.33%)
  • 2018: 86-103 (83.50%)
  • 2022: 81-100 (81.00%)
  • Overall: 252-309 (81.55%)

Set Score Statistics

When you consider that 513 games over the last five tournaments have averaged just 3.59 sets then it is no surprise that the 3-0/0-3 scorelines are by far the most popular outcome, a massive 56.92% of the games (292-513) have ended in a straight-set win, only just over a quarter of the games (27.29%) have ended in four sets whilst a small 15.79% needed all five sets to find a winner. With the odds statistics and a lot of very short-priced favourites, it really is no surprise to see so many straight-set winners.

  • 3-0: 194 Games (37.82%)
  • 0-3: 98 Games (19.10%)
  • 3-1: 95 Games (18.52%)
  • 3-2: 50 Games (09.75%)
  • 1-3: 45 Games (08.77%)
  • 2-3: 31 Games (06.04%)
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FIVB Volleyball Womens World Championship Medal Table

After winning the first three tournaments (1952, 1956 & 1960) the Soviet Union lept to the top of the leaderboard, this was not just the case in this tournament, they did it across multiple volleyball tournaments as they stamp their authority on the sport. Japan was the first country to end the Soviet Union's run in 1962 when picking up the gold and leaving just the silver for the Soviet Union and then Japan backed that up five years later in 1967.

Both 1970 & 1974 saw gold and silver also go to those two, gold for the Soviet Union in 1970 and gold for Japan in 1974, however, Japan has not won gold since then and further success for the Soviet Union in 1990 left them two golds clear of Japan. Cuba won their first gold in 1978 and then picked up back-to-back wins in 1994 & 1998 which meant they equalled Japan's tally of three golds.

Rank Club Gold Silver Bronze Total
1st Soviet Union 5 2 1 8
2nd Japan 3 3 1 7
3rd Cuba 3 1 0 4
4th China 2 3 1 6
5th Russia 2 0 3 5
6th Serbia 2 0 0 2

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