The World Baseball Softball
Confederation today announced the groups, schedule and location of the WBSC
Baseball Americas Qualification Event for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo
2020. Hosted by USA Baseball, the qualifier will be staged in Surprise and
Tempe, Arizona, USA, where eight nations will compete for an Olympic spot over
16 games.
Group A: No. 2 USA, No. 10 Dominican Republic, No. 11 Puerto Rico and No. 15 Nicaragua.
Group B: No. 8 Cuba, No. 9 Venezuela, No. 12 Canada and No. 14 Colombia.
Game Schedule (all times local)
Sunday, 22
March-Surprise
1 pm Puerto Rico-Dominican
Republic
7 pm USA-Nicaragua
Sunday, 22
March-Tempe
1 pm Venezuela-Cuba
7 pm Colombia-Canada
Monday, 23
March-Surprise
1 pm Colombia-Venezuela
7 pm Canada-Cuba
Monday, 23
March-Tempe
1 pm Nicaragua-Puerto Rico
7 pm Dominican Republic-USA
Tuesday, 24
March-Surprise
1 pm Nicaragua-Dominican Republic
7 pm Puerto Rico-USA
Tuesday, 24
March-Tempe
1 pm Canada-Venezuela
7 pm Cuba-Colombia
After group play concludes, the top two finishers from each group will
advance to the Super Round, where they will each play two games. Head-to-head
contests among these teams from the opening round will carry over into the
Super Round standings.
The team with the best
Super Round record will be declared the winner and become the fifth National
Team to advance to the baseball tournament of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,
joining world No. 1 Japan, No. 3 Korea, No. 5 Mexico and No. 18 Israel.
The runner-up and the
third-place team in the Americas Qualifier will play the Final Qualifier,
scheduled from 1 to 5 April in Taichung and Douliou City, Taiwan. They will
battle for the last spot in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with No. 4
Chinese Taipei and No. 20 China, who both qualified through the Asia
Championship, the runner-up from the Europe/Africa Qualifier, No. 8
Netherlands, and No. 7 Australia, the Oceania representative.
Venues
Surprise, Arizona, is
located approximately 45 minutes northwest of downtown Phoenix. The stadium
(cover picture) is the Spring Training home of the Kansas City Royals and the
Texas Rangers. It opened in 2002 and has a seating capacity of 10,714. Surprise
Stadium was rated as the top Spring Training facility in Arizona by USA Today.
Diablo Stadium -- located
in Tempe, in the East Valley of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area -- is the Spring
Training home of the Los Angeles Angels. The 9,558-seat facility opened in 1969
and was renovated in 2002.