Road to Tokyo: Four nations set to open Women’s Softball African Qualifier

• Four nations will compete at the Women’s Softball African Qualifier, aiming to advance to the WBSC Softball Europe-Africa Qualifying Event for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo 2020, to be held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 23-27 July. Botswana, Nigeria, host South Africa and Uganda will play the 2-day tournament at the Rietondale Stadium in Pretoria, starting on Friday, 10 May. The top two teams will represent the continent in the Europe/Africa Olympic qualifier.

The four teams will take the field on Friday, 9 am, to open the tournament, with South Africa facing Nigeria, and Botswana playing Uganda. After a single round robin, the top two teams will advance to Utrecht and will collide for the continental title in the final of the event, slated to be played on Saturday, 14:30. The other two teams will play for the bronze medal.

Botswana and South Africa will start the tournament as the main candidates to represent Africa in the next stage of the Olympic qualification process. Both teams played the final of the continental championship 2018 and participated in last year’s World Championship in Chiba, Japan. However, Nigeria and Uganda will try to upset at least one of the continental powerhouses to remain in the hunt for one of the top two positions in the standings.

Nigeria is the only not ranked team in the tournament. The other three nations are featured in the WBSC Women’s Softball World Ranking: South Africa is ranked No. 28, Uganda No. 30 and Botswana No. 43.

The two African teams advancing from this tournament will face six European nations in the WBSC Softball Europe-Africa Qualifying Event for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo 2020. The eight participating teams will be divided into two groups through a draw, to be held at WBSC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 10 July. The top two National Teams in each group will advance to a Super Round. Only the winner of this tournament will play softball in Tokyo 2020.

Africa Softball Qualifier Schedule

Friday, 10 May

Saturday, 11 May

The post Road to Tokyo: Four nations set to open Women’s Softball African Qualifier appeared first on WBSC.