Beijng At Bat With Olympics Softball Test

Opening Day at the Ballpark

China conquered Great Britain in a 10-0 rout in the opening match of the championship, 65 more to follow through September 5. Eight games were played on Sunday's first day of competition.

The 16-team tournament includes powerhouses such as China, Australia and defending champion U.S., as well as two teams making their first appearance at a world championship: Greece and North Korea.

The championship, held every four years since 1974, is now in its 11th edition.

The ceremonial first pitch was thrown by Liu Peng, president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, with International Softball Federation president Don Porter swinging a bat at home plate.

After some concerns from coaches and players about the hazy air quality in the days before the tournament, Sunday's first day of competition was played under a blazing sun, with high temperatures reaching more than 30c on the field.

About 5,000 fans turned out for the first match to cheer on the hometown team, about half the capacity of the 10,000 seat main stadium. Next door, at the second stadium, only about 200 were in the stands for the South Africa-North Korea match. The second stadium holds 3,000.

Tickets are modestly priced: $3 for preliminary matches, $10 for finals.

Other dignitaries on hand for the opening of the championships included BOCOG President Liu Qi, secretary general Wang Wei and Deng Pufeng, head of disabled sports for China.

New Venue for Softball

The tournament is being played at the new Fengtai sports complex in west Beijing built for the Olympics. It's getting good marks from players and officials, who often use the word "excellent" to describe the six diamond complex, now receiving its baptism.

That's how IOC member from Chinese Taipei described the venue. In addition to watching the team from Taipei square off (and lose) to Japan, Wu also heads the working group on construction for the IOC Evaluation Commission for Beijing.

"I think it is excellent. The best ever for an Olympics," Wu says without reservation. He acknowledges that the biggest drawback would be the distance, 23km from the Olympic Village. Without traffic, the drive can take up to 45 minutes.

For the world championships, athletes, officials and media are housed in hotels within a 15 minute drive of the venue.

A media center is steps away from the two principal stadiums, press conference room and mixed zones. A work room has space for about 60 journalists. Panasonic high def screens carry the action from the field of play.

As a test event and federation world championship, the stadium contains banners for sponsors, but not to the profusion in Qingdao, about 560 km from Beijing, where the sailing test event is in its final days.

Sponsors with signage at the Fengtai Stadium include Coca-Cola, Adidas, sohu.com, China Mobile and Mizuno.

TV Blackout in U.S., Live on the Net

While large parts of the world will be able to see the softball championships on TV, the U.S., home to softball, is a black hole, despite the signal being offered for free.

The most comprehensive TV coverage of the tournament will come from China's CCTV which will broadcast 26 matches. There will other coverage in China, Japan and Europe, but none in the U.S.

"We couldn't get ESPN to take it," Porter tells Around the Rings.

"But they had other commitments, like Little League baseball," he notes with a bit of pique.

There will be internet coverage available, at www.2006softball.org, the website for the championship. Some bugs were being worked on the first day, but coverage is supposed to be live of each of the 26 games being broadcast by CCTV.

The Great Britain-China match is the first archived games available for viewing in all of its two-hours, ten minutes of shutout glory.

The site for the softball, as does the one for the sailing in Qingdao, set a benchmark for test event coverage via the net. Photos, video, results and more are packed into each site, an effort never seen before at this stage of Games preparation. In Qingdao, SMS service provides results of the sailing via mobile devices.

Back in the Games?

IOC's Wu says he regrets the demise of softball from the Olympics program following Beijing. He is in favor of its return when the IOC votes in 2009 for the program in the 2016 Olympics.

"The Beijing Olympics are key," he says in the form of advice to the ISF.

"The federation needs to invite as many people to come to see the sport, to educate them," says Wu.

"In 2008 most IOC members will be here and it is great opportunity for promotion."

IOC vice president Lambis Nikolaou will be coming Monday to watch some of his country's preliminary matches, but no other IOC members from outside China are known to be coming.

Wu says he sees more of an opportunity for softball to rejoin the program than baseball, which were both ejected starting in 2012. Wu says as a women's sport, softball should receive more consideration from his IOC colleagues.

That will not be the case, he predicts, for baseball. He says until a way is found for the best in the sport to play in the Olympics, baseball will stay out.

Wu himself is in the midst of some major self-promotion, traveling the globe to seek support for his candidacy for president of the AIBA, the international boxing federation.

He is one of two candidates challenging incumbent Anwar Chowdhry. Wu is campaigning on a platform to reform the federation. The AIBA share of TV revenues from Athens are being withheld by the IOC until changes in judging selection and bout scoring are made by the federation.

Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com.