Global Women's Basketball Legend Eliane Girod Story Adapted into Comic

Basketball Federation (FIBA) has released a comic titled La Valise d’Eliane. This comic tells the journey of Swiss player Eliane Girod at the historic 1953 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup.

The launch was announced on FIBA's official website on Monday, coinciding with International Women's Day on March 8. 

The work pays tribute to the history of the first edition of the Women's Basketball World Cup in Santiago in 1953.

The launch timing felt even more special as March 7 marked the start day of that tournament and also coincided with the 100th anniversary of Girod's birth.

According to FIBA, the Story in this comic was inspired by Girod's diary entries during the tournament, which became a milestone in the development of global women's Basketball Competition.

Girod was known as a player for Swiss club Chene-Bougeries, which dominated domestic competition by winning 13 consecutive national championship titles from 1942 to 1954.

Besides shining at club level, she was also one of three Chene-Bougeries players who strengthened the Swiss national team at the 1952 FIBA Women's EuroBasket, one year before appearing on the world stage in 1953.

Approximately seven decades later, various memories of the legend's journey were found through a collection of memorabilia kept by her family. 

With the support of her daughter Corinne Dahan, her grandson Joachim Dahan, and former teammates like Claudine Clot and Yvonne Cotier, Girod gathered a number of historical documents, including the diary she wrote during the tournament.

The entire collection was then donated to the FIBA Foundation as part of efforts to preserve the history of global women's basketball.

In the comic La Valise d’Eliane, the players' journey is depicted through the long route they had to take from Geneva to Paris, Lisbon, Dakar, Rio de Janeiro, and finally arriving in Santiago. 

This cross-continental journey provides a real picture of the struggles faced by female athletes in an era when Sport was still heavily dominated by men.

The story also highlights the social and cultural challenges female players had to face at that time, long before women's basketball gained the global recognition it has today.

The comic is written by Jacobo Rivero and illustrated by Raulowsky. It is available in several bookstores in Switzerland and France and can be ordered online through the publisher Livreo-Alphil.

Through the medium of comics, Girod's journey story becomes not just a historical archive, but also an inspiration for a new generation of women's basketball players worldwide.