Monica Abbott pitched a five-inning perfect game at the 2008 Olympics and returns to try to help Team USA defend its 2006 ISF world championship title. (Photo by Qiang Fu)

FIVE WEEKS AWAY
2010-05-19

Exactly five weeks from today the International Softball Federation’s XII Women’s World Championship gets underway in Caracas, Venezuela. The 2010 edition marks the first time that this event will be played in South America.

Among the numerous arrangements being made is coverage of the tournament across numerous websites, mostly of the social media variety. The ISF alone is planning the following:

• From its Twitter page, ‘tweets’ every time there is a final score
• Via the official ISF YouTube channel, short video interviews with players and/or coaches after certain games, as was done last year during the men’s world championship
• Daily photo albums on the ISF page on Facebook, with game action photos, close-ups of players and/or coaches, fan/stadium shots, press conference pictures, VIPs, etc.
• Write-ups recapping each day, posted here on www.ISFsoftball.org

Fans can interact not only through some of the above but by posting comments about their favorite team and/or the tournament in general on the ISF message boards.

Of course there is also the official event website, www.mundialsoftbol2010.org.ve.

The tournament participants include: Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, and Venezuela.

Next month’s event comes during a year-long commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the first-ever softball world championship, with five countries having competed in February 1965 in Melbourne, Australia. That tournament was women’s fast pitch and one year later in Mexico City eleven men’s national teams went head-to-head. Today there are also junior women’s and junior men’s (both age 19-and-under) world championships as well, having started back in 1981.