(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
   22 countries to participate in European Softball Championship in Netherlands
Nederlands
 PULLY (Switzerland) -
Twenty-two countries will participate in the 24th edition of the Women's Softball European Championhip, which will be held September 1-7 this year in the Utrecht-region in the Netherlands.
On December 13, WBSC Europe announced that the Executive Board had officially accepted the bid from the Netherlands to host the event.
The complex of UVV will be the main-site of the upcoming Championhip.
UVV's site is located in Vleuten, which in January 2001 became part of the Municipality of Utrecht.
Games also will be played on the sites of Domstad Dodgers (Utrecht), Nieuwegein Diamonds (Nieuwegein) and Centrals/Wombats (De Bilt).
On Wedesday (January 10), WBSC Europe officially announced that 22 countries will participate in the tournament in September.
The 22 countries who confirmed their entry for the event are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.
Pool-alignments and schedules will be announced later.
The Netherlands is the defending European Champion after capturing the title in 2022 when the event took place in Sant Boi (Spain).
The Orange Team then shutout Great Britain 7-0 in the Final.
Back then, 21 countries participated.
The current total of 22 is the highest since 23 countries participated in the 2019 Championship in Czechia.
For the Netherlands and Italy, the European Championship will be their second major event in 2024.
On July 15-21, the two countries also will participate in the Women's Softball World Cup in Italy.
In 2019, UVV's home-complex was the site of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Softball Europe Africa Qualifier.
The Netherlands then appeared close to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games, but suffered a crucial loss 5-2 loss against Great Britain.
The Netherlands then got another opportunity the next day, taking an early 4-0 lead in the first inning against Italy.
But Italy turned the game around, won 7-4 and then shutout Great Britain 5-0 to advance to the Olympics.
Due to the coronavirus-pandemic (COVID-19), the Games in Tokyo (Japan) were postponed to 2021.
The complex of UVV also has been the site of the 2017 Baseball European Championship Juveniles.
In 2012, some of the games of the Baseball European Championship were played at Sportpark 'De Paperclip', UVV's home-site in Vleuten.
During the 1986 Baseball World Championship (the first to be hosted in the Netherlands), some games were played at UVV's former home-site in Utrecht.
(January 10)
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