Today marks 100 days to the opening day of the XIII WBSC U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup, the pinnacle youth women’s softball competition, to be staged in Irvine, California, USA, from 11-17 August.

This tournament will be the first-ever Softball World Cup event, initiating a rebranding process of the softball world championships into Softball World Cups. The first step was the presentation of the U-19 Softball World Cup new logo, that will remain permanent for the upcoming events.

The best 16 junior teams spanning all five Olympic continents will battle For the Title of World Champions at Bill Barber Park:

• Africa (2): 28 South Africa and No. 43 Botswana.
• Americas (5): 1 United States, No. 3 Canada, No. 4 Puerto Rico, No. 5 Mexico and No. 14 Brazil.
• Asia (3): 2 Japan, No. 6 Chinese Taipei and No. 8 China.
• Europe (4): 9 Italy, No. 10 Netherlands (wild card), No. 15 Czech Republic and No. 22 Ireland.
• Oceania (2): 7 Australia and No. 11 New Zealand.

Host United States and Japan have dominated the event in the past, facing each other in the last 10 World Championship finals, for a total of 11 combined titles. United States has won back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2015, for a record-setting six world championships.

Japan’s last world championship was back in 2013 in Brampton, Canada, for a total of five. Only China could break USA and Japan’s supremacy in this age-group, winning their only World Championship back in 1985, in Fargo, USA.

The WBSC U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup has been staged every two years and features the best youth players in the world competing on their National Teams for softball’s Official World Championship in the respective category. Starting in 2020, this event will change the age category, becoming a U-18 event.

The groups, official game schedule and broadcast details of the XIII WBSC U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup 2018 will be revealed in upcoming releases.