From Athens to Berlin: photographing the 2026 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup
WikiPortraits photographer Zafer spent two years working toward the 2026 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, then shot 28 games in ten days in Berlin.
WikiPortraits photographer Zafer (User:Zafer) spent two years working toward covering the 2026 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup. When the tournament closed in Berlin in September, he had photographed 28 games in ten days, covering players from five continents. His pictures of the World Cup and its qualifying rounds now come to 3,938 files on Wikimedia Commons.
The road to Berlin began in Athens. Zafer obtained FIBA accreditation for EuroBasket Women 2025 and photographed nearly twenty games across the final round, uploading more than 2,500 pictures to Wikimedia Commons. Women's basketball in Europe is thinly illustrated on Wikipedia, and a tournament's worth of freely licensed photographs is one of the quickest ways to change that.
A qualifying tournament at home
When Türkiye reached the World Cup qualifiers, one leg was awarded to Istanbul, the city where Zafer lives. Accredited again, he photographed all fourteen games played at the Basketball Development Center between 11 and 17 February, as Argentina, Australia, Canada, Hungary, Japan and Türkiye played for places in the final tournament. That week added more than 2,000 pictures to Commons.
Ten days in Berlin
Word that his World Cup accreditation had been approved came on 4 August, and Zafer began preparing immediately. He arrived in Berlin on 2 September and opened at the Berlin Arena with Japan against Mali. Over the following ten days he shot 28 games, photographing the best players in the women's game from five continents.
Where the pictures went
Editors moved fast. Zafer's photograph of the United States trophy ceremony has so far been added to 33 language Wikipedias, from Arabic to Hungarian. His portrait of Breanna Stewart has reached 23, including Basque, Japanese and Korean. His picture of China's Zhang Ziyu illustrates the English Wikipedia's list of tallest people.
Berlin was a first step rather than an arrival. Zafer's next goal is to photograph the 2027 Men's Basketball World Cup.
