Six months to baseball's first pitch at Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

The baseball tournament of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is set to begin on Wednesday, 29 July, in Fukushima. Four of the six teams participating in the Olympics have already qualified: the hosts Samurai Japan, Israel as the winner of the Europe/Africa Qualifier, Korea and Mexico as the best seeded National Teams of the Asia and Americas Regions in the WBSC Premier12 2019. The other two participants will qualify out of the Americas in late March and out of the Final Qualifier in early April.

The six-team tournament will be played with a format that is unprecedented in Olympic Baseball. The National Teams will be split into two groups and will thus play two games each. The results will determine only the placing.

The second round will have the double-elimination format. The first-place teams in both groups will skip the first round. Second and third-place finishers will contest in the first round to have access to the winners part of the board. The two winners in this part of the board will advance directly to the first semifinal. The winner of the first semifinal will advance to the gold medal game, the loser will still have a chance.

The loser of the match between the first-place finishers in group play will advance directly to the second round of the losers part of the board. The participants to this part of the board will need two wins to advance to the second semifinal against the loser of the first semifinal.

The winners of the two semifinals will compete for gold and the losers will play for bronze. The medal games are scheduled on Saturday, 8 August in Yokohama.

Read More: Six months to the return of Olympic softball