Press Release International Baseball Federation, www.ibaf.org
The 11 best national teams from around the Women’s Baseball world have converged in Caracas Venezuela for the 4th IBAF Women’s Baseball World Cup, which starts this coming Thursday. The event will be held in the Venezuelan cities of Caracas and Maracay from the August 12-22.
The competing teams will be split into 2 pools to play the 1st round, Pool A consisting of Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Netherlands and Venezuela and competing in the capital Caracas at Jose A Casanova Stadium, while Pool B in Maracay will be comprised of Cuba, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the United States and will battle at at Jose Perez C. Stadium. The top 3 teams from each pool will be gathered in Caracas to determine the best nation in Women´s baseball while in Maracay, non medal contention teams will compete for placement and ranking points.
Defending Champion Japan will open up against the Team USA in Maracay, while hosts Venezuela will take on first-time competitor the Netherlands in the opener in Caracas.
“We are excited to bring this tournament to the great nation of Venezuela, and look forward to showcasing the world best Women’s baseball talent in this event, and happy to see this sport growing at such a rapid pace,” stated IBAF President Fraccari at his offices in Rome, Italy.
The full schedule can be found at the following link
IBAF Executive Director Roberto Fabbricini noted, “The Venezuelan Nation and Baseball Federation have done an excellent job in the preparations and organization of this tournament. All is set for a great competition. I am quite looking forward to seeing who the next world champion will be.”
Previous World Cups were held in Canada, Chinese Taipei and Japan, with USA winning the first two Women’s Baseball World Cups and Japan winning on home turf back in 2008. The only nations to have took home a medal in the Women’s Baseball World Cup have been USA, Japan and Canada; Australia has finished 4th at every WBWC and will be looking to medal in Venezuela.
Full Medal Talley is as follows
Canada 2004: USA, Japan Canada
Chinese Taipei 2006: USA, Japan, Canada
Japan 2008: Japan, Canada, USA,
Australia has finished 4th in Every edition
The event will be presided over by competition director Nicolas Riveria, Mitsuzoshi Sato being Chairman of Technical Commissioners, Carlos Rey will be the head umpire and Pablo Carpio of Spain with be head scorer for the tournament.
More information can be found through www.ibaf.org