09/07/2022 - 13/07/2022

Women's Softball | For the Title of World Champion  

Hosted by:   USA

World Games | Women's Softball - Official Payoff

Japan Women’s National Softball Team nominated for The World Games Athlete of the Year award

Japan Women’s National Softball Team nominated for The World Games Athlete of the Year award
11/01/2022
The Tokyo 2020 gold-medal winning team will compete in an online voting to be crowned as the top athlete or team of the past sports year. Find out how you can vote.

The Japanese Women’s National Softball Team, gold-medal winner at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, has been nominated for the The World Games Athlete of the Year award. Online voting began on 10 January. 

World No. 1 Japan defended their Beijing 2008 gold medal with an historic 2-0 win over USA in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games final. "This was different from the previous gold medal. Playing on home soil came with a huge amount of pressure," said softball superstar Yukiko Ueno, also the winning pitcher of both the Beijing 2008 and Tokyo 2020 finals.

Sports fans can learn more about the 24 candidates and pick their winners on The World Games website. The top ten in the voting, as measured on 23 January, will move on to the final. After that the final round of voting begins, and continues until 31 January, when The World Games Athlete of the Year award will be named.

Each participant can cast votes for the candidates once per 24 hours. Each time, votes must be given to two candidates: two votes to your first-choice candidate and one vote to your second-choice candidate.

Japan will participate in The World Games 2022 in Birmingham, Alabama, from 9-13 July. Eight teams have qualified to compete in softball at the multi-sport event, including all six squads that competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games -- No. 1 Japan, No. 2 USA, No. 3 Canada, No. 4 Mexico, No. 8 Italy and No. 9 Australia -- in addition to No. 6 Chinese Taipei and No. 7 China.

The eight teams will be drawn into two groups. After a three-day group stage, the top two teams in each group will advance to the semifinals, on Tuesday 12 July. The day after will take place the bronze medal game at 4 p.m. local time, and the final at 7 p.m.. 

The World Games is a multi-sport event staged every four years by the International World Games Association under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee.