The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced today that South Africa and Colombia will participate in the first-ever U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup in Lima, Peru, and complete the field of teams of the 2020 youth global event. The 16-team event will be held at the Villa María del Triunfo Sports Complex, the venue of the Pan American Games Lima 2019 softball competition.
Originally scheduled to take place from 23-30 August**, the WBSC U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup was postponed earlier this month, along with the WBSC Women’s Baseball World Cup and the WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup tournaments, due to the ongoing spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
As the top ranked African nation in the world rankings, South Africa will represent the African continent in the event while Colombia - the host country of the U-17 Women’s Softball Pan American Championship 2019, which was a qualifier for this event - received a wild card to complete the lineup of 16 teams.
World No. 26 South Africa and No. 48 Colombia will join No. 1 USA, No. 2 Japan, No. 3 Canada, No. 4 Puerto Rico, No. 5 Mexico, No. 6 Chinese Taipei, No. 7 China, No. 8 Australia, No. 9 the Netherlands, No. 10 Italy, No. 11 the Philippines, No. 12 the Czech Republic, No. 16 New Zealand and No. 19 Peru in the U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup, an event that replaces the U-19 Women’s Softball World Championship after 13 editions.
South Africa made its debut in a youth softball World Cup in 2007 in Enschede, the Netherlands, finishing in 15th place with no wins in seven games. They will make their fifth appearance in international youth softball events, looking for their fourth win ever. In 2011, as the host team, they won the opening game of the Junior Women’s World Championship against Botswana by a score of 6-5; in Clearwater 2017, South Africa defeated Turkey, 16-3, in four innings; while last year in Irvine they beat Botswana again, 8-7, during the Placement Round.
The best result for South African was 13th place in 2011 when they hosted the tournament. In the U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup 2019 South Africa finished 15th with a 1:5 win:loss record.
For Colombia the U-18 Women’s Softball World Cup will be the second appearance in a youth global event. Their previous participation was in 2015 in Oklahoma City, USA, when they shared Group A with Great Britain, Argentina, Japan, Canada, China, New Zealand and Chinese Taipei. Colombia scored only one run in the tournament, in an 8-1 loss against Great Britain to open the championship. They have yet to win a game in this age bracket.
It will be the first time since 2012 that a global softball event is played in Latin America, when the U-19 Men’s Softball World Championship was played in Parana, Argentina.
** The WBSC Executive Board is regularly monitoring the latest developments concerning the coronavirus pandemic, including receiving updates from the World Health Organization and relevant international health experts, as well as from local event organizers and authorities to continuously assess the status of WBSC events in 2020. During this period, the safety and well-being of players, the WBSC family and everybody involved in WBSC events remains the highest priority.
