(Story & Photo by Marco Stoovelaar)
     Dates Olympic Softball Qualifiers 2027 confirmed by WBSC
Nederlands
 PULLY (Switzerland) -
On Friday (October 9), the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) confirmed the dates for the three Qualifiers for the 2028 Olympic Games Softball Tournament.
The three Continental Olympic Softball Qualifiers will be staged across a five-week period (August 31-October 3) in 2027, with each tournament awarding one berth for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games (LA28).
The competition format for all three Softball Olympic Qualifiers will be announced later.
Softball will return to the Olympic Programme at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
Softball was previously played during the Olympic Games of 1996 (Atlanta, USA), 2000 (Sydney, Australia), 2004 (Athens, Greece) , 2008 (Beijing, China) and 2020 (Tokyo, Japan).
The first tournament on the Road to LA28 will be the WBSC Softball Americas LA28 Olympic Games Qualifier, which is scheduled for August 31-September 5 in Mexico.
The host city will be announced later.
Host Mexico will be one of the six participating teams in the tournament.
Previous Women's Softball Olympic Qualifiers for the Americas were staged in Puerto Rico (1995, 2003), Venezuela (1999, 2007) and Canada (2019).
The WBSC Softball Asia/Oceania LA28 Olympic Games Qualifier then follows September 10-15 in China.
The six-team tournament will be played at Shaoxing Baseball Softball Culture Center in Shaoxing with the participation of four teams from Asia and two from Oceania.
This event will be the second consecutive Asia Oceania Olympic Qualifier in China.
In 2019, Shanghai hosted the event for Tokyo 2020.
The WBSC Softball Europe/Africa LA28 Olympic Games Qualifier concludes the qualifying-period.
This also will be a six-team tournament, beginning on September 28 and ending on October 3.
The the hosting rights of the event were awarded to Spain in May.
There, the tournament will take place at the Antonio Hervás Municipal Baseball & Softball Stadium in Sant Boi de Llobregat, near Barcelona.
Five European teams and one representing Africa will compete for one place in the six-team LA28 Olympic Games Softball Tournament.
The previous Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier was played in Utrecht (Vleuten) in the Netherlands in 2019.
In 1995, Haarlem (Netherlands) hosted the first Europe/Africa Qualifier.
...OGE Energy Field at Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (USA),...
...the site of the Olympic Softball Tournament during...
...the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
The second- and third-placed teams from the Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe/Africa Continental Qualifiers will advance to the WBSC Softball Final Qualification Event.
The winner of that event will claim the final berth in the LA28 Softball Tournament.
The Final Qualification Event will take place no later than March 2028, with the host and dates to be announced later.
The first team to qualify for the LA28 softball-competition will be the highest-ranked team at the WBSC Women’s Softball World Cup Finals.
That tournament will be staged April 5-11 in Redcliffe (Australia).
The highest-ranked team at the World Cup Finals excludes the USA, which of course already has qualified as host of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
The games of the Olympic Softball Tournament during the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games will be played July 23-29 on OGE Energy Field at Devon Park, located on what was formerly known as Don E. Porter ASA Hall of Fame Stadium (1987-2017) and USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium (2018-2024) in Oklahoma City.
Devon Park is the home of the USA Softball Headquarters, the USA Softball Hall of Fame Museum and is known as the Softball Capital of the World.
Since 1990 (except for 1996), the complex is home of the Women's College World Series (NCAA Division I) and will be through 2035.
In September, the third (and final) WBSC Women's Softball World Cup Qualifier took place in Oklahoma City.
In 2027 (June 28-July 8), 2029 and 2031, the WBSC Women's Softball U-15 World Cup will be held at Devon Park.
Last year, the WBSC U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup and in 2024, the WBSC Men’s Softball World Cup Qualifier (Group C) were also organized in Oklahoma City.
The games of the Olympic Baseball Tournament in 2028 will be played July 13-19 in Dodger Stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, which is the home-stadium of Major League-club Los Angeles Dodgers since 1962.
Dodger Stadium is the third-oldest overall Major League-stadium after Fenway Park in Boston (1912) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (1914).
It is the largest baseball stadium in the world by seat capacity (56,000).
(October 9)
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