(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
  Groups revealed of Olympic Softball Qualifiers
Nederlands
 LAUSANNE (Switzerland) -
The groups and schedules of two Olympic Qualifying Softball Tournaments were revealed on Wednesday (July 10) at the Headquarters of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
There, the live draw was conducted for the Europe/Africa Qualifer and the Asia/Oceania Qualifier.
The winners of these events will qualify for next years Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo (Japan).
,,Now all the teams aiming to advance to Tokyo 2020 know their rivals, and the road to Tokyo 2020 is clear for everyone'', said WBSC Softball Chairman Tommy Velazquez, who participated in the announcing of the draw.
,,In the next months, the world will see the best softball nations competing for the Olympic dream, with only four berths available in the next Olympic Games.
Good luck to everyone.''
Six countries will participate in the Olympic softball-tournament.
Two of them already have qualified.
Japan as host country and the USA by winning the title at the World Championship last year in Chiba (Japan).
The WBSC Softball Europe/Africa Qualifier will be held July 23-27 at Sportpark 'De Paperclip', the home of baseball- and softball-club UVV in Vleuten/Utrecht (Netherlands).
As host, the Netherlands was seeded number 1 in Group A, while Italy was seeded number 1 in Group B as reigning European champion.
Last Saturday, Italy won 3-2 against the Netherlands in the Final of the European Championship in Ostrava (Czech Republic).
During this Championship, the six best countries advanced to the Qualifier.
Botswana and South Africa qualified for the African continent during the African Softball Championship earlier this year.
During the draw, the Netherlands was joined in Group A by Great Britain, Spain and South Africa.
In Group B, Italy will meet Botswana, the Czech Republic and France.
The Opening Round Robin will be played on July 23, 24 and 25.
On those days, four games will be played.
The two best teams of each group will advance to the Super Round.
In this round, two games daily will be played on July 26 and 27.
Starting times will be announced later.
The Netherlands opens the event against South Africa, then meets Spain and Great Britain on the next two days.
European Champion Italy respectively plays against Botswana, the Czech Republic and France.
The draw for the group-alignments also was done for the WBSC Softball Asia/Oceania Qualifier, which will be held September 24-28 in Shanghai (China).
There, the six best teams of the Asian Softball Cup, as well as the top two ranked National Team from Oceania will participate.
The winner of this event will earn the ticket for the final spot in the Olympic Tournament.
Playing in Group A will be China, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Korea.
Playing in Group B will be Australia, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
In between these two tournaments, the WBSC Softball Americas Qualifier will be played in Surrey (Canada) from August 25 through September 1.
The draw for this 12-team event was held in April.
The two best teams from this Qualifier will advance to the Olympic Games.
Group A looks as follows in Surrey: Argentina, Canada, Bahamas, Cuba, Guatemala and Puerto Rico.
Playing in Group B are Brazil, the British Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
(July 10)
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