Olympics
Americas Olympic baseball qualifiers: dates, games, groups, and countries
Eight teams will face each other in Florida for a spot in the next Tokyo Olympics. This is the first time Baseball will be played since 2008.
Two groups of four will begin the Americas Olympic qualifiers this Monday, May 31st. The teams that will battle for the opportunity to reach the Olympics this summer. The groups are host team United States, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and group B, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, and Canada.
On the first day of the competition, the United States will face Nicaragua, while Puerto Rico will battle the Dominican Republic. On the other side, Colombia will play Canada, and Venezuela will duke it out with Cuba.
The tournament will be played over three days. There will be four games each day. At the end of the first round, those teams who secure the two top spots of each group will advance to the next round. Moreover, the tournament's final stage will be between those four teams, and the winner of this phase will be in Tokyo this summer.
The super round
In the last stage of the competition, the top two teams of group A will play the top two teams of group B. After that, the team's tally points will be weight against the team from the same group, and whoever has the most points will advance to Tokyo.
Teams finishing second and third will still have a chance to qualify for Tokyo 2020 through the final qualifier, due to be held in Mexico next month.
Australia, The Netherlands, and Chinese Taipei have already qualified for the Mexico meet. Additionally, ESPN+ has signed a streaming deal for the tournament in the US.
At the olympics
Men's baseball and women's softball is returning to the Olympics after it was scrapped in 2008. Japan has a strong tradition of baseball and softball and asked the committee to allow them to host the sport once again.