Taiwan softball team to sharpen skills in China

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on January 19, 2007. It reports that the Chinese Taipei women's softball team is scheduled to depart Taiwan for China for intensive training, in order to prepare for a regional Olympic qualifier in southern Taiwan's Tainan City on February 15, 2007.

According to the Chinese Taipei Amateur Softball Association, the four-day training in Guangzhou City will mainly feature several competitions against the Chinese national softball team and a Guangdong provincial softball team.

If the Chinese Taipei softball team fares well in the qualifier, softball will be the first competition event in which Taiwan will field players in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

To prepare for the Olympics, the Chinese Taipei softball team has been training since 2005. The team's efforts bore fruit when it took the silver medal in the Doha Asian Games in 2006.

According to the Chinese Taipei Amateur Softball Association, Olympic softball is played only by women, while men compete in baseball. The International Olympic Committee has voted to remove softball from the program for the 2012 Olympics.

Eight teams will compete in the softball tournament in a two-round competition. China, as the host nation, is guaranteed automatic entry, while the top four finishers in the 2006 Softball World Championships -- the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada -- will also qualify for the Olympic tournament.

Meanwhile, there will be continental qualifying tournaments for Europe/Africa, Pan-America, and Asia/Oceania, with the winners of each tournament earning a spot in the Olympics. Six national teams -- Chinese Taipei, North Korea, South Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore -- will compete in the Asia/Oceania Olympic qualifying tournament. It will be the first of the three regional Olympic qualifiers.

The Olympics will be held in Beijing over a 10-day period from August 12, 2008.