(Story & Photo by Marco Stoovelaar)
  WBSC announces sites and dates for Olympic Qualifiers for baseball and softball
Nederlands
 ROME (Italy) -
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced on Sunday (January 20), the sites and dates for the various Olympic Qualifying Tournaments that will be played this year en route to the next years Olympic Games in Tokyo (Japan).
The Executive Board of the WBSC voted on the decisions at the headquarters of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) in Rome, following bid presentations.
As host, Japan of course already is qualified for both Olympic tournaments, which both will have six participating countries.
In August last year, the USA Softball Team became the first one to qualify by capturing the title at the World Championship in Chiba (Japan).
The organization of the tournament for the European and African Region for softball has been awarded to the Netherlands, while the baseball-tournament in this region will be staged in Italy.
From July 23-28, the complex of UVV in Vleuten will be the site of the Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifying Softball Tournament.
The winner of this event will qualify for the Olympic Games.
The organization of the Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifying Baseball Tournament has been awarded to Italy and will be played September18-22 in Parma and Bologna.
Here, the winner also will qualify, but the team in second place get another chance via an international tournament to be played in Asia in 2020.
Both events will be preceeded by an European Championship with The Netherlands being the reigning champion in both baseball and softball.
To reach the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, the Netherlands Baseball Team has to finish in the top-5, while the Orange Softball Team has to finish in the top-6.
There will be six Qualifing Tournaments on the Road to Tokyo, three for baseball and three for softball.
The baseball-tournaments will be played in Chinese Taipei, Italy and the USA.
The softball-events take place in Canada, China and the Netherlands.
...Riccardo Fraccari...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
In a press release, WBSC-President Riccardo Fraccari stated:
,,These next two years - 2019 and 2020 - will be the most important in the history of international baseball and softball.
With the announcement of the locations and timeline of the Olympic qualifiers, players, national federations, leagues and fans around the world can now see the exciting and challenging path it takes to get to Tokyo 2020 - where the competition for Olympic gold in baseball and softball promises to be among the biggest storylines.''
In baseball, the Olympic Qualifier for Europe and Africa will be the first one to be played in Italy.
The five best teams of the preceeding European Championship will qualify for this event and will be joined by the best team from Africa.
The European Championship will be held September 7-15 in Bonn and Solingen (Germany).
On November 2-17, the second edition of the Premier12 will be held.
The top team in this event from the Asia/Oceania Region (excluding Japan) and the top team from the Americas will both qualify for the Olympic Games.
During its meeting, the WBSC Executive Board decided that when no team from Asia of Oceania finishes in the top-six, this slot will be decided in the last Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
In March 2020, the Americas Olympic Qualifier will take place in Arizona (USA) with the participation of eight countries.
Participating will be the representatives from the Americas from the Premier12 that did not qualify for the Olympics plus the two best teams from the Pan American Games, that will be played in Lima (Peru) in July/August.
The winner will go to the Olympic Games, while the second and third best team get another chance in the final Qualifier.
The last Qualifier will be played next year in Taipei City (Chinese Taipei) with the participation of six teams coming from around the world.
They include the second best team from the Africa/Europe Qualifier, the second and third-placed teams from the Americas Qualifier, the top two teams from the Asian Championship and the winner of the Oceania Qualifier.
The winner completes the field of participants for Tokyo 2020.
The softball-road also begins with the Qualifier for Europe and Africa with the participation of eight countries.
This also follows the European Championship, which will be held June 30-July 6 in Ostrava (Czech Republic) and Rybnik (Poland).
The top-6 of the European Championship plus the two best teams from Africa will participate in Vleuten (Netherlands) with the winner qualifying for the Olympic Games.
This will be followed by the Americas Olympic Softball Qualifier, which will take place August 25-September 1 at Surrey, British Columbia (Canada), which is the site of the wellknown annual Canada Cup.
Sixteen countries will participate and the two best teams will advance to Japan 2020.
Hereafter, the Asia/Oceania Olympic Softball Qualifier will be played September 24-29 in Shanghai (China) with the participation of eight countries.
Six of them come from the Asian Games and two from Oceania.
The winner completes the field of particpants of the Olympic softball-tournament.
(January 20)
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