Softball at the 2008 Summer Olympics

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Softball at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing will be held over a ten day period starting August 12 and culminating with the medal finals on August 21. All games will be played at the Fengtai Softball Field. Olympic softball is competed by women only, men compete in the similar sport of baseball.

The International Olympic Committee has voted to remove softball from the program for the 2012 Olympics, so this is the last time that softball will be contested at the Olympics unless it is reinstated at a future date.

1 Competition Format
2 Qualification
3 Qualification Schedule
4 References

[edit] Competition Format

Eight teams will compete in the Olympic softball tournament, and the competition consists of two rounds. The preliminary round follows a round robin format, where each of the teams plays all the other teams once. Following this, the top four teams advance to a single elimination round consisting of two semifinal games, and finally the bronze and gold medal games.

[edit] Qualification

The eight teams in the Olympic softball tournament will qualify through a series of tournaments. China, as the host nation, is guaranteed one automatic entry. The top four finishers at the 2006 Softball World Championships will be qualified for the Olympic tournament. Finally, 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 Olympic tournament.

[edit] Qualification Schedule

Date	Event	Location	Qualifier
	Host Nation		People's Republic of China
Aug 20-29, 2006	Softball World Championships	Beijing, CHN	United States of America Japan Australia Canada
June 9-16, 2007	Europe & Africa Olympic Qualifying Tournament	Trieste, ITA	1st place team
Feb. 1-5, 2007	Asian & Oceania Olympic Qualifying Tournament	Tainan City, Taiwan	Chinese Taipei¹
Aug. 18-26, 2007	Pan-American Olympic Qualifying Tournament	Caracas, VEN	1st place team

Note 1: Chinese Taipei is the official IOC designation for the state officially referred to as the Republic of China, more commonly known as Taiwan. (See also political status of Taiwan for details.)