The new Canadian women’s basketball team head coach is Spaniard Victor Lapena, his club team Fenerbahce announced on Twitter on Thursday.
Canada Basketball has a press conference scheduled later in the day to make the announcement.
Lapena, a 46-year-old from Zaragoza, is a longtime coach with Spain’s national women’s program at both the development and senior level, and was an assistant at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Canada, ranked fourth by FIBA, parted ways with former head coach Lisa Thomaidis in September.
Under Thomaidis, the Canadian women failed to advance past the group stage at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 — a disappointment following two consecutive quarter-final appearances.
The Canadians will return to Japan in February for their World Cup qualifying tournament, where they’ll play the eighth-ranked hosts, as well as No. 11 Belarus and No. 27 Bosnia and Herzegovina. The top three teams from the group advance to the 2022 World Cup, which begins in Australia in September.
The World Cup is a direct qualifier for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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