Editing Bandy (section)

===World Championships===
[[File:2012bandy russia-sweden1.jpg|thumb|right|[[Russia national bandy team|Russia]] in the men's [[Bandy World Championship 2012|World Championships 2012]]]]
[[File:BandyCountriesWC2017.png|thumb|right|A record eighteen countries participated in the World Championships of [[2016 Bandy World Championship|2016]] and [[2017 Bandy World Championship|2017]]. Blue means Division A countries, red Division B countries as of the 2017 tournament and green the other [[Federation of International Bandy|FIB]] members. Latvia, which was relegated from Division A in 2016, made a late cancellation in 2017.]]

====Men====
The [[Bandy World Championship]] for men is arranged by the FIB and was first held in 1957. It was held every two years starting in 1961, and every year since 2003.

Currently, the record number of countries participating in the World Championships is twenty (2019). Since the number of countries playing bandy is not large, every country which can set up a team is welcome to take part in the World Championship. The quality of the teams varies; however, with only six nations, Sweden, [[the Soviet Union]], Russia, Finland, Norway, and [[Kazakhstan]], having won medals (allowing for the fact that Russia's team took over from the Soviet Union in [[Bandy World Championship 1993|1993]]). Finland won the 2004 world championship in [[Västerås]], Sweden, while all other championships have been won by Sweden, the Soviet Union and Russia.

The Soviet Union won all championships until 1981, when Sweden managed to break the streak of eleven straight gold medals. Sweden won again in the next tournament in 1983, but Soviet again seized the victory in 1985. The Soviet Union also won at its last two appearances, and then Sweden won in 1993, 1995 and 1997. Russia, having taken over after the Soviet Union, and Sweden have kept on winning all championships between them except for 2004, when Finland managed to claim the win.

In 2020, the B division of the World Championship was played, but the A division – which was to be played about a month later – was first postponed a couple of times due to the outbreak of the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] and later moved to the next year as the pandemic did not end. The championship tournament could however not be played in 2021 either. In 2022, the championship was finally to be held, but since it was scheduled to be played in Russia, many national federations said they did not want to participate because of the [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine]] and it was cancelled by the FIB since this meant there would have been too few competing teams.

====Women====
[[Image:Damebandy.jpg|thumb|Finland and Norway at the [[2004 Women's Bandy World Championship|2004 Women's World Championships]] in [[Lappeenranta#Sports|Lappeenranta]]]]
The first [[Women's Bandy World Championship|World Championship for women]] took place in [[2004 Women's Bandy World Championship|February 2004]] in [[Lappeenranta, Finland|Lappeenranta]], Finland. [[Sweden]] won the championship without conceding a goal. In [[2014 Women's Bandy World Championship|the 2014 women's World Championship]] Russia won for the first time, defeating Sweden, making it the first time Sweden did not win the world title. In 2016 Sweden took the title back.

The [[2018 Women's Bandy World Championship|2018 women's tournament]] was played in a country situated completely in Asia for the first time, when it was hosted in [[Chengde]], [[China]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rusbandy.ru/news/8728|date= 3 February 2016|title= Борис Скрынник: Приветствие Владимира Путина очень важно и для россиян, и для иностранных команд |website= rusbandy.ru }} [https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rusbandy.ru%2Fnews%2F8728 Google Translate: "Boris Skrynnik: Vladimir Putin's greeting is very important for both Russians and foreign teams"]</ref><ref>[http://www.hrbipe.edu.cn/html/JSXL/YXYDY/show-21181.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170906133904/http://www.hrbipe.edu.cn/html/JSXL/YXYDY/show-21181.html|date=6 September 2017}} [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.hrbipe.edu.cn/html/JSXL/YXYDY/show-21181.html Google Translate] (dead link in October 2021)</ref> It was the same for the men's tournament that same year (the area north and west of the [[Ural River]] is located in Europe, thus Kazakhstan, which had hosted a world championship before, is a [[List of transcontinental countries|transcontinental country]]), when [[Harbin]] hosted [[2018 Bandy World Championship|the 2018 Division B tournament]].

The [[2020 Women's Bandy World Championship|2020 championship]] saw China withdraw its participation due to the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], but the tournament was held in Norway in February and the pandemic had not yet reached Europe. In [[2022 Women's Bandy World Championship|2022]] when the championship was played in Sweden, China did not yet return, while Russia and Ukraine both withdrew because of the [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine]].

====Youth====
There are also [[Youth Bandy World Championship]]s in different age groups for boys and young men and in one age group for girls. The oldest group is the under 23 championship, [[Bandy World Championship Y-23]].