Road to Tokyo long but manageable for Kingdom of Netherlands

Today the website of the Italian Baseball federation (FIBS) published an article on the final qualifying process for the Olympic baseball tournament in Tokyo. This process is an extensive one for the European countries.

Even if the Kingdom of Netherlands qualifies for the Premier 12 tournament that will be held in November 2019, it will not be able to get a ticket to Tokyo with that tournament. That privilege is for countries from the Americas, Oceania, and Asia. The best two non-European countries will qualify for Tokyo 2020. Of course, Japan will be one of the six participants during the 2020 Olympics as hosting country.

For the European countries, the qualification for the 2020 Olympics starts with the 2019 European Championship that will be played in Germany (Bonn and Solingen). The best five countries of that tournament will qualify for a qualifier that will likely be held in Spain. The best team from Africa will attend that qualifier as well to make it a six-team field.

This qualifier will be played in February of 2020. The winner of that tournament will head to Japan as well. The runner-up of the final of that qualifier will have an ultimate chance to earn a ticket to Tokyo as it can participate in the very last Olympic qualifier where it has to take on the runner-up and the third team of the American qualifier, the two best non-qualifiers from Asia and the best not qualified country from Oceania.

A long road for the European teams but especially for team Kingdom of the Netherlands this is manageable. My first thought was “Why on earth is it impossible for the European teams to clinch a ticket during the Premier 12? Mr. Fraccari should have done more for his own continent.” But when I gave this a second thought, I realized that it will be almost impossible for the Dutch to clinch a ticket with the Premier 12 with strong countries like the USA, Korea and Taiwan (and don’t rule out Australia). The path the Dutch have to follow now may be easier. First of all, they have to finish with the five best teams during the European Championship, but that is a formality. The hardest part will be the Olympic qualifier in Spain. They must win that tournament. But that is not an impossible task.

*Knock on wood*