just Sweden’s third season in the top Group. That year, Germany gave the fans in Nurnberg something to cheer about, earning its first medal at the Inline Hockey World Championship, a bronze medal effort. In 2003, it was Finland squeaking past Sweden in the final game, while Team USA returned to the podium, claiming the bronze medal. In 2010, USA won its fifth championship, first since 2006 and in 2012, Canada won its first championship since 1998. In July 2015 it was announced that the World Championships would be changed from an annual tournament to a biennial tournament. The change means that three qualification tournaments will be held in the even years to earn promotion to Division I, starting in 2016, and the World Championships will be held in the odd years, starting in 2017. The qualification tournaments have been restructured into three regions to lower travel costs with the regions now being Africa/South America, Asia/Oceania, and Europe/North America. In January 2016 the IIHF announced that two of the qualification tournaments had been realigned with North America moving into the Africa/South America tournament to become Americas/Africa, leaving Europe to have its own qualification tournament. In June 2019 the IIHF announced that they would no longer govern inline hockey or organize the Inline Hockey World Championships. The IIHF had earlier cancelled the 2019 edition of the tournament due to a lack of applications for hosting the event. Format The longest-lasting format for the World Championships featured 16 teams: 8 teams in the Top Division and 8 teams in Division I. If more than 16 teams wished to participate, qualification tournaments were held. In the preliminary round, the 16 teams were split into 4 groups (Groups A through D) with Groups A and B forming the Top Division, and the Groups C and D forming Division I. The teams play each other in a round robin format, and then all teams proceeded to the quarterfinals. Single-game elimination rounds were played to establish 1st through 8th place. At the end of the tournament, the best seven teams of the Top Division and the winner of Division I qualified for the next IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship Top Division. The last-placed team of the Top Division was relegated to the next IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship Division I. Additionally, the bottom three placed teams in Division I were relegated to the Qualification tournaments, which