Tokyo 2020: Two Baseball spots still for up for grabs

The recently completed 2019 edition of the Premier12 qualified two national teams to the baseball tournament of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games - Korea and Mexico.

Korea, the defending champions, earned the right to defend their Olympic title after beating Mexico on Day 4 of the Super Round. The win allowed Korea to advance to the final against Japan, who had already qualified for the Olympics as the host nation, therefore guaranteeing Korea an Olympic ticket as the highest ranked team from Asia/Oceania.

Meanwhile, Mexico's Olympic ticket was secured on the final day when they defeated USA in the bronze-medal game, thus earning an Olympic spot for first time as the highest ranked team from the Americas.

The total number of teams participating in the baseball competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games numbers six with four teams - Japan, Israel, Korea and Mexico - having qualified to date. Israel booked their Olympic ticket in September as the winner of the Europe/Africa Qualifier, played in Parma and Bologna, Italy.

Two more national teams will qualify for the baseball tournament of the XXXII Olympiad in early 2020.

The Qualifier of the Americas, to be played in Arizona (USA) from 22 to 26 March 2020, will grant one spot. Eight national teams will be split into two groups and the top two of each group will compete in the Super Round, from which the winner will qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Games.

These are the participants:

Group A: World No. 2 USA, No. 11 Puerto Rico, No. 12 Dominican Republic, No. 15 Nicaragua

Group B: No. 5 Cuba, No. 9 Venezuela, No. 10 Canada, No. 14 Colombia

The second and third-place finishers of the Americas Qualifier will join the Netherlands (the runner-up at the Europe/Africa Qualifier), Chinese Taipei, China (the winner and third placed team at the Asia Baseball Championship) and the winner of the Oceania Pre Qualifier, to be played between the second half of January and the first half of February 2020, in the Final Qualifier, which will be played in Chinese Taipei (Taichung and Dou Liou) from 1 to 5 April 2020.

The winner of the six-team tournament will earn the sixth and final spot in the baseball tournament of the 2020 Olympics.

The Softball competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has already completed its qualification process with the following six teams qualified: the hosts Japan, USA, Mexico, Canada, Italy and Australia.