The World Baseball and Softball Confederation announced the dates of the two remaining Olympic Qualifiers. Both the Qualifier in the Americas and the and in Taiwan will start in June. Only the dates vary.
The qualifier of the Americas will start early June in Florida. The one to be held in Taichung and Douliu City (Taiwan) will be played from June 16 through June 20.
The group of the Americas will have a somewhat curious format.
The tournament will contain two groups:
Group A: No. 2 USA, No. 10 Dominican Republic, No. 11 Puerto Rico and No. 15 Nicaragua.
Group B: No. 8 Cuba, No. 9 Venezuela, No. 13 Canada and No. 14 Colombia.
After group play concludes, the top two finishers from each group will advance to the Super Round, where they will each play two games. Head-to-head contests among these teams from the opening round will carry over into the Super Round standings.
The team with the best Super Round record will be declared the winner and become the fifth National Team to advance to the Tokyo Olympic baseball tournament, joining world No. 1 Japan, No. 3 Korea, No. 5 Mexico and No. 18 Israel.
The qualifier in Taichung and Douliu City will contain the following teams: world No. 4 Chinese Taipei, No. 6 Australia, No. 9 Netherlands, No. 22 China and the second- and the third-place teams from the WBSC Baseball Americas Qualifier. The winner of this tournament will clinch the final ticket to the Olympic Games.
A tough task for manager Hensley Meulens and his team Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Dutch Baseball Hangout 