Historic: France on top of WBSC Baseball5 World Rankings for first time
France made history by becoming the first European nation to sit on top of a WBSC World Ranking after the latest update of the WBSC Baseball5 World Ranking.
Following last week's Baseball5 European Championship, where France finished second, they moved up from second place to first on 3,037 points, surpassing Chinese Taipei (2,775). Cuba (2,393) and Tunisia (1,995) remain in third and fourth place respectively.
The new European champions Lithuania climbed five positions to fifth place on 1,892 points.
World No. 4 Tunisia, No. 7 South Africa and No. 10 Ghana are three African programmes among the top 10 while Japan, Mexico and Korea sit in sixth, eighth and ninth place respectively.
The Netherlands and Belgium are the most improved programmes in positions 11-20 with the Dutch moving up seven places to 12th, just behind European arch-rivals Italy who are up five positions to 11th place. Belgium also climbed seven positions to No. 16.
The number of programmes featuring in the Baseball5 World Rankings is at a record high of 49 with Spain (No. 26) and Finland (No.32) earning their first Ranking Points.
