NEWCASTLE (Paul Nilsen's Women's Basketball Worldwide) - The curtain has fallen on another summer of U16, U18 and U20 youth tournaments in Europe with the landscape looking wholly different to last year.

It's one of the reasons I love European youth basketball so much. The shifting sands can be dramatic and it's all fuelled by having so many fiercely competitive nations playing in two divisions - something which continues to make it a cut-throat and brutal business, very much in stark contrast to the more predictable situation in the other zones around the world.

Last year, you may recall that there was a golden harvest for Spain - a clean sweep no less. Consequently, you would have received long odds had you said at the start of this summer that they would relinquish all three of their coveted titles. Even more so, had you accurately predicted they would only make one of the three European finals.

Will the alarm bells be ringing at the Spanish Federation? I doubt it. They still competed for the medals and it was mainly that the cookie just didn’t crumble in their direction this year. They almost won the FIBA U17 World Championship for Women title in that dramatic finale against the USA and got two bronze medals, so it wasn't exactly a spectacular fall from grace.

On the topic of clean sweeps - what about Greece and Sweden?

They have both posted a quite dreadful 2014, getting relegated from all three age categories. While it was a little more predictable for Greece who aren't exactly rock-solid and perennial Division A participants, I suspect in the case of Sweden, it will be of concern - even if the Federation anticipated a struggle.

The other big fail was probably Turkey getting trashed at U18 level and winning just one game in Matosinhos - something I referred to in a recent column.

From the quick-sand experiences of Greece, Sweden and Turkey, we move onto the glorious golden sands where Russia can now lie. Their respectable top eight finish at the U20 European Championship was followed up by a gold at U18 Level in Matosinhos and then an even more convincing gold in the U16 age category in Debrecen, Hungary last weekend.

It couldn't have been better timed. With the Russian national team missing out on the FIBA World Championship for Women for the first time in decades in the wake of their humiliating EuroBasket Women debacle last year, the young guns have fired a warning shot that talk of Russia's longer-term demise might have been exaggerated.

Denmark meanwhile are an absolute minnow and while they may have been relegated from the U16 European Championship for Women, they can be proud that after their glorious promotion last summer into the top flight, they made more history this summer. With most of their top players too old and moving on, they were expected to finish bottom of this tournament, but avoided that feat by recording a first-ever win in the top tier by beating Sweden which rubbed salt into the wounds of their fellow Scandinavians.

Portugal enjoyed this summer and their progress will be put on display in 2015. For the first time, they will have all three age groups playing in Division A during the same year and having spent time in Matosinhos recently, I know a lot of hard work has gone into it and I am very pleased for them. It's also because everyone was fearing the U16 team would fall through the trap door and yet they survived and showed great guts to win the two games needed on the final weekend.

Other honourable mentions include Estonia, who made history and got promoted to Division A at U18 level and will step out for the first time next year at the higher level in this competition which is a great achievement. With no teams at all in Division A this summer, Germany got promotion at two of the three Division B tournaments and so they can be positive about their results too.

Finally, the other nation really smiling right now is Hungary, who won that superb bronze medal at the FIBA U17 World Championship for Women and followed it up by grabbing promotion to Division A in the U18 category and making the Quarter-Finals of U16 on home soil - having already been promoted to Division A at the U20s.

Yet the real beauty with European youth basketball is that the sun has barely gone down on this year's action and already, I just can't help myself from looking forward and anticipating what might happen next summer.

Paul Nilsen

FIBA

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