Baseball Canada – OTTAWA – Canada will play Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela in Group B next March at the WBSC Baseball Americas Olympic Qualifier as the international federation today announced the groups and schedule for the event that will determine one spot in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic baseball competition.
The eight-nation event that features host USA in Group A along with the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico, will take place at a yet-to-be-determined venue in Arizona from March 22-26.
The Opening Round will be played from March 22-24 with the top two teams of each group advancing to the Super Round and carrying the result of the game played between each other. The Super Round will see each team play two-crossover games with the top finishing team in the tournament final standings gaining a berth in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The WBSC also announced the dates and schedule of games for the WBSC Baseball Last Olympic Qualifier, to be held in Taichung, Taiwan, from April 1-5.
The list of participating teams in the six-team event will include the second and third place teams from the Baseball Americas Olympic Qualifier, host Chinese Taipei and China from the Asia region, the Netherlands representing the Europe/Africa region and the winner of the Oceania region qualifier.
A single round robin will be played for the final spot in the six-team Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to join already qualified nations Japan (host team), Israel (Europe/Africa), Mexico (Premier12) and Korea (Premier12).