WBSC Americas Qualifier Schedule Released: 8 Nations Set Sights on Tokyo

This Thursday, 29th April 2021, the World Baseball and Softball Confederation released the fixture list for the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Baseball Qualifiers for the Americas. Eight teams will compete for a place at the Olympics in two stage tournament hosted in Florida between May 31st and June 5th.

The eight teams and their WBSC world ranking are as follows: No.2 USA, No.7 Cuba, No.8 Venezuela, No.10 Dominican Republic, No.11 Puerto Rico, No.13 Canada, No.14 Colombia and No.15 Nicaragua. The groupings and fixture list for the opening stage of the tournament can be seen below:

(Image courtesy of WBSC)

The lowest ranked team competing for a chance to prove themselves on the grand stage is Nicaragua. Pencilled in to play the toughest schedule of all the teams, El Nicas will be looking to write a true underdog story guided by new national team manager Marvin Benard. Benard is a native Nicaraguan who played as an outfielder for the San Francisco Giants between 1995 and 2003; He began his coaching career in 2015 as a batting coach in the San Diego Padres organisation.

Another team to watch is the USA, as the highest ranked team competing in the Qualifiers the United States will be heavy favourites and the pressure will be on them to live up to those expectations. Playing on home soil is likely to give the team a big boost as fans will be in attendance for all games played over the 6 day tournament. They'll be looking to join their North American counterparts México, at the final games, who qualified via the Premier 12 pathway.

Other nations to look out for are Puerto Rico, who will be looking to maintain the high standards it set by reaching the World Baseball Classic final in 2017, eventually losing out to the USA. The Dominican Republic will also be looking to ride a wave of success having won the Serie del Caribe in February, their 21st victory in that competition since it began in 1949.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics Baseball tournament will begin on July 28th, with the Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese professional leagues all pausing their season so that their players can compete.