The team preparation begins on May 27 at the Leigh Indoor Sports Centre, and 13 bottom age players will be making the step up at the camp, before the group joins the Under-20 men's squad in a joint camp in Colchester at the start of June.

The team will be the first women's youth squad from Britain to compete in European Division A competition after achieving promotion last year.

They will be competing in Group D alongside Slovakia, Latvia and Spain when the tournament begins in July.

The team's head coach, Damian Jennings, said: "The preparation programme will be intense as we balance training and practice games against Division A standard teams.

"This year's competition will rely upon good preparation once again and I believe we are well prepared and have a strong camp in place to do well in the European Championship later in the year."

As part of the preparation camp, the squad will be taking on France, Holland and the Czech Republic in a three test game series.

Head of performance at British Basketball, Warwick Cann, added: "The women achieved a lot last year when they were promoted through to Division A and stepping up to a new level is why everyone plays and coaches basketball.

"This step up will certainly help our current standards of playing and coaching overall.

"The competition this year for the under-20 women promises to be hard but I'm sure it will also prove to be rewarding in its own difficult way."

British basketball has taken huge strides in recent times, with the senior men's squad competing in Group A of Eurobasket for a place in the 2009 European Finals, and the squad will now be travelling to Lithuania this summer for the 2011 Eurobasket.

The senior women's team also qualified for the first time for the women's Eurobasket, taking place in Poland in June.

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