2012 World University Netball Championship
The 2012 World University Netball Championship was hosted at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town, South Africa between 2 July and 7 July 2012. The tournament was organised by the Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire and University Sport South Africa. It was the inaugural tournament of the World University Netball Championship. It was won by Great Britain who defeated the host nation, South Africa 53–49 in the final. Jamaica finished third after defeating Northern Ireland 41–30 in the bronze medal match. Participants. Initially, eighteen countries indicated that they would send teams. However by June  2012, when the draw was made for the tournament, only seven had confirmed their participation. These were South Africa, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Jamaica, Namibia, Uganda and the United States. Australia and New Zealand where among the countries that had dropped out. Before the tournament started, a late entry by Zimbabwe saw the number of participants increase to eight. It was initially planned that Ireland would send an All-Ireland team, featuring players from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However no players from the Republic were selected for the final squad. As a result, it was a  Northern Ireland team, in effect, that competed in the tournament. Format. When there was just seven teams due to participate, it was planned for all seven teams to play each other once in a group stage. The top four teams would then qualify for the semi-finals. However with the addition of Zimbabwe it was decided to split the eight teams into two groups of four. All eight teams qualified for the quarter-finals, with the final group tables deciding the quarter-final draw.