New dates for The World Games in Birmingham: 7-17 July 2022

New dates for The World Games in Birmingham: 7-17 July 2022
02/04/2020
Women’s softball will be featured as a medal discipline in the multi-sport event for the third time in 11 editions of the World Games.

The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) welcomed today’s announcement of the new dates of The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. The decision was jointly made by the International World Games Association (IWGA) and Birmingham Organising Committee (BOC) and unanimously supported by all the IWGA Member Federations with sports on the programme. Women’s softball will be featured as a medal discipline in the multi-sport event to be held from 7-17 July 2022. The Games had originally been planned to take place from 15–25 July next year.

The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to move the Tokyo Olympic Games to July 2021 made a significant impact on the planning of The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. Keeping to the original dates in July 2021 would have meant excluding many athletes and officials involved in the Olympics, and would have led to a potential reduction in public and media interest.

"The discussions with IWGA were very candid and as the governing body for international softball, the WBSC is very supportive of the change of dates," WBSC Executive Director Michael Schmidt said. "This decision now brings further clarity to the 2021 and 2022 international and WBSC sports calendars and our female softball stars can now plan accordingly. We look forward to continuing to work closely with IWGA and the Birmingham Organising Committee to make the event a superb success in 2022."

“A great deal of detailed work is now required to implement this decision, and further progress reports will be issued in due course,” said IWGA President José Perurena. “But I am impressed by the flexibility and efficiency of the Birmingham Organising Committee: they have been able, in just two days after the IOC’s announcement, to get all the main organisational items in place.”

Women’s softball is one of the 32 sports to be featured during the 11-day multi-sport event. World No. 1 USA (host), No. 2 Japan, No. 3 Canada, No. 5 Mexico, No. 6 Chinese Taipei, No. 7 China, No. 8 Australia, and the winner of the European Championship 2020 will participate in the eight-team competition.

It will be the third official softball event at The World Games. USA claimed the gold medal at the first two editions of the Games, in Santa Clara 1981 and London 1985. Softball was played at The World Games in Cali 2013 as an invitational sport where Cuba earned the gold medal.

Former International Softball Federation (ISF) was among the founding members of the IWGA in 1981.