A rather unusual event took place in the early hours of the morning at the Radisson Collection Hotel in Berlin, Germany, where all FIBA Women’s World Cup teams are staying except Team USA.
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According to Sky Sport and AP News, every team was woken up around 2 am after a fire alarm forced an immediate evacuation of the building. However, it later came to light that there was no fire. The hotel management revealed that someone activated the fire alarm manually and sent out a notice.
All teams were allowed to re-enter the hotel premises an hour after the incident.
The players and coaches affected by the commotion took the whole situation lightheartedly after learning it was just an accident. Belgian guard Elise Ramette was even live-recording all the drama outside the hotel, as seen on her Instagram story, posted on X.
“When the whole hotel gets evacuated in the middle of the night, ultimate teambuilding.” Ramette wrote on her story at 2:04 am.
Later, the Australian head coach also spoke about the situation, after Australia beat Turkey 87-71.
“That’s a what-if situation, isn’t it?” Australia head coach Sandy Brondello said, smiling, per The Associated Press. “Now we have that in our toolbox. Never done that before.”
However, Brondello and her team were not really affected by the disrupted sleep, as they went on to win the first game of the day that tipped off at 11:30 am.
“It was kind of crazy. Just kind of happened,” Australia forward Ezi Magbegor said. “Knowing that it’s out of our control, so just getting back to sleep and waking up. No one was going to feel sorry for us.”
Meanwhile, Turkey head coach Andrea Masson said he and his players got only about three hours of sleep due to the fire alarm, but did not associate the alarm with the loss.
“They had a really bad night last night,” Masson said. “That’s not an excuse, but that’s the reality.”
As for Team USA, they were not affected by the fire alarm, as Caitlin Clark and co. have arranged their own accommodation and are the only team not staying with the rest of the teams.
But this incident occurred ahead of another busy day in Berlin, as eight teams are scheduled to take the court. Team USA is facing Italy later tonight, who were affected by the overnight evacuation. Both teams will be playing their second game of the tournament, with Italy coming after beating the Czech Republic, whereas Team USA cruised past China on Friday.