Six months ago, the WBSC U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup opened its first edition in Lima, Peru, hosting eight of the top teams in the world. The tournament, which was previously held 13 times as a U-19 or Junior event, has been the beginning of the Olympic career for many athletes, with Tokyo 2020 being a perfect example.
Of the 90 players who participated in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games softball competition, 46 played in the Junior Women’s Softball World Championship in the early stages of their career, making the youth global tournament a starting point for the international career of the top players in the world. It includes players from all six participating nations in Tokyo.
Tokyo 2020 featured players from the previous eight junior World Cups over a span of 20 years, from 1999 to 2019. Veteran pitchers Yukiko Ueno (JPN) and Lauren Bay Regula (CAN) participated in the 1999 Junior Women’s World Championship in Taipei, with the Japanese legend pitching her team to the world title. While Danielle Lawrie (CAN) and Monica Abbott (USA) starred in the 2003 World Championship played in Nanjing, China.
The 2011 and 2013 editions of the Junior World Cup (in Cape Town, South Africa; and Brampton, Canada) produced 10 Tokyo 2020 Olympians each for five different nations, more than any other event.
Even the 2019 edition of the tournament had three Olympians on the diamond, with Japan’s Miu Goto (pictured) and Italians Alexia Lacatena and Giulia Koutsoyanopulos wearing their national team jerseys in Irvine, California, USA.
Lima 2019 and the future of softball
With all that said, we can be sure that the future of softball was on stage at Villa Maria del Triunfo Complex in Lima, Peru, for the WBSC U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup in December last year and it will be interesting to know how many of these players will potentially be present at the Los Angeles Olympic Games** in 2028?
Asked about the importance of this in the future of her international, and potential Olympic, career, the tournament MVP Valerie Cagle said: “It just gives us a good building block, we have this experience here and we are now able to build confidence on what we’ve done here, so we can take that for the future.”
Chinese Taipei head coach Yu-Chun Tsai acknowledges that Chinese Taipei’s future is in good hands, with right-handed pitcher Hsia-Ai Ke making a big impact on the tournament. “She’s going to play in the Asian Games,” Tsai explained. "She has improved a lot and she will help Chinese Taipei to get better results in the future.”
What about being in the process of developing the new generation of Olympians? “I think that would be amazing, especially for these athletes,” said USA Head Coach Kyla Holas. “They’ve got now the chance to see what it’s like to wear those letters on your chest, and for them to be able to have a taste of that, know what USA Softball is about, continue developing their game and hopefully get an invite in the future. That would be something that, for all of them, would be a dream come true.”
** The Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, along with the International Olympic Committee, are currently evaluating additional sports to be added to its sports programme of which baseball and softball is one.
