by World Baseball Softball Confederation, www.wbsc.org
The Czech Republic Women’s Softball National Team will tour Florida from 19 February to 4 March, to play a total of 19 games in 14 days against U.S. universities. The trip will provide a good tune up for the upcoming European Women’s Softball Championship and, if they advance, the Europe/Asia Olympic Softball Qualifier.
Czech Republic, the 15th team in the WBSC Women’s Softball World Ranking, is aiming to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in history. In order to achieve this goal, they must succeed in back to back tournaments in July 2019.
The Women’s European Championship will be played from 30 June to 6 July in four cities: Ostrava and Frydek Mistek, in Czech Republic; and Rybnik and Zory, in Poland. The top six teams in this championship, along with the top two African nations, will advance automatically to the Europe/Africa Olympic Softball Qualifier, slated to be played in Utretch, the Netherlands, from 23-29 July. Only the winner of this tournament will join the already qualified nations Japan (host) and United States (WBSC World Champion 2018) in the six-team Olympic Softball event in Tokyo 2020.
Czech Republic finished fourth in the last European Championship (2017), and missed the WBSC Women’s Softball World Championship 2018 in Chiba, Japan. But then they clinched the title in the Super 6, played in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands, in September last year, with the top six teams in the continent.
The Czech Republic Florida tour roster includes 11 players from last year’s Super 6 championship team.