Which nations are baseball and softball strongholds?

In men’s baseball Cuba, Chinese Taipei, Japan, USA, Republic of Korea, AustraliaAnd Dominican Republic have won Olympic medals, although there are also strong teams from other Latin American countries, including Mexico And Venezuelaand a constantly improving European core – both Great Britain And Czech Republic good performance in the Baseball World Cup 2023while Netherlands have participated in four Olympic tournaments.

At the same time, the same teams are performing well in women’s softball, as are People’s Republic of Chinawhich has reached the semi-finals in three of the five Olympic tournaments.

However, attention is turning to the next level of teams that could finally make the breakthrough.

Abbott said: “There are some other countries that are really stepping up their performance and have done really well. Italy had a really young team in Tokyo – so I imagine they will bring a lot of athletes back for LA 2028 and that experience could help them perform better.

“We want to keep our South American countries healthy, and we also want to keep our other Asian countries like Chinese Taipei, Singapore and China healthy, just by keeping the softball sport of those countries healthy. Europe will always be a challenge for us because it’s not a sport that people grow up with, but it’s a sport that’s developing more and more.”