Baseball5 has been confirmed on the programme of the sixth Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games. The Games are scheduled from 17 to 26 November 2023 in Bangkok and Chonburi, Thailand.
WBSC Secretary General and Softball Asia President Beng Choo Low confirmed the news from the 41st Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) General Assembly in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and called on all Asia and Oceania national federations to "get your teams ready for participation through your NOC".
"The confirmation of Baseball5 on another international multi sport programme is testament to its growing popularity around the world," said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. "The recent Baseball5 Asia Cup proved how successful our latest discipline is in terms of engaging new participants and new audiences and I look forward to seeing this continue at the Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games."
Baseball5 is also part of the ANOCA Beach Games in Tunisia next year and will also feature in the Youth Olympic Games 2026 in Dakar, Senegal.
The Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games (AIMAG), a pancontinental multi-sport event, comes from the merger of two formerly separate OCA-sanctioned events: the Asian Indoor Games (AIG) and the Asian Martial Arts Games (AMAG). They involve the Olympic Committees of Asia and Oceania.
Bangkok hosted the first edition in 2005. The fifth edition happened in 2017 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The seventh edition is scheduled for 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Previous editions featured other team sports such as Futsal, 3x3 basketball and volleyball.
Asia recently celebrated the first edition of the Baseball5 Asia Cup. Chinese Taipei won the tournament and qualified for the inaugural WBSC Baseball5 World Cup with the runner-up Japan and the third-place finisher Korea.
Twelve National Teams will participate in the Baseball5 World Cup:
Africa (2) South Africa, Kenya
Americas (2) Cuba, Venezuela
Asia (3) Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea
Europe (2) France, Lithuania
Host Nation (1) Mexico
Oceania (1) Australia
Wild Card (1) Tunisia
The Baseball5 World Cup is scheduled to take place from 7 to 13 November in Mexico City.
