by Pim van Nes
Sunshine, clouds en rain showers circulating over Northern Europe, offer wonderful background views with rainbows over the ISF World Championship softball, hosted by Olympia club in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
On Day 4 (Monday, August 18) five games were completed, but due to rain and field repairs three games had to be postponed till Tuesday morning. Now that the first 32 games of the preliminary round robin have been played, each group has two unbeaten teams: Canada and Japan in Section A and Australia and USA in Section B: each 4-0. Both sections have two runners-up: Cuba and Dominican Republic with 3-1 and Czech Republic and Italy with 2-2. The other eight teams have lost already 3 or even all 4 games of their schedule.
Rainbows as a symbol for the Olympic aspirations of International Softball Federation? Reunion with the Olympic family would mean a relief especially for national softball federations, their coaches and players of the representing teams. Now they suffer from economizing attitudes of national governments. Everything will change once the Olympic Games are awarded to Tokyo, where softball is welcome, alike baseball. Nowadays, IOC has one partner to talk with if it is about the two hit-and-run sports: World Baseball and Softball Confederation.
Yesterday WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari and Secretary General Beng Choo Low were interviewed by Dutch journalist Monne Reitsma for an article in to-day’s Haarlems Dagblad, main newspaper in Haarlem region. Here are a few quotes:
“IOC wanted one partner to speak with about our sports. IBAF and ISF are non-excistant in the eyes of IOC. They only know WBSC. Of course it will take some time to get used to that. It is not easy to change two sport federations with a rich history, but we have to look forward. Close collaboration is better for our future and therefore this unification is necessary.”
“A great advantage in Tokyo is that we already have all facilities available there. The two tournaments for baseball and softball can be hosted in the same Tokyo Dome. The modification of the field for softball was already proven feasible for the Asian Games. Imagine, two sections of four teams. After the section games we continue immediately with semi finals and then the medal games. We need less than a week for a tournament.”