January 30, 2020

By Adam Morissette

Baseball Canada

OTTAWA - Canada’s men’s national baseball team will face Colombia on March 22 in Tempe, Arizona to open Group B play at the Americas Baseball Qualification Event for Tokyo 2020 as the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) today announced the groups, schedule and locations for the eight-team tournament.

Canada will then face Cuba on March 23 in Surprise, Arizona before heading back to Tempe to wrap-up opening round play against Venezuela on March 24.

Group A consists of host USA along with the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico with the top two countries in each group advancing to the Super Round where 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 baseball tournament of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, joining world No. 1 Japan, No. 3 Korea, No. 5 Mexico and No. 18 Israel.

The runner-up and the third-place team in the Americas Baseball Qualifier will play the Final Qualifier, scheduled from April 1 to 5 in Taichung and Douliou City, Taiwan. They will compete for the sixth and final spot in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with No. 4 Chinese Taipei and No. 20 China, who both qualified through the Asia Championship, the runner-up from the Europe/Africa Qualifier, No. 8 Netherlands, and No. 7 Australia, the Oceania representative.

SCHEDULE: WBSC Americas Baseball Olympic Qualifier