JAPAN WINS ASIAN GAMES SOFTBALL
2006-12-15

Yesterday in Doha, Qatar, Japan won its second straight Asian Games softball gold medal, defeating Chinese Taipei, 7-0, after the latter had advanced to the Grand Final with a 10-7 victory over China earlier in the day.

The victory meant that Japan finished the event with a perfect 6-0 won-lost record – the same mark they had posted four years earlier at the 14th Asian Games in Korea. The Japanese, silver medalists at the International Softball Federation’s XI Women’s World Championship that wrapped up just over three months ago in China, were also perfect at the 8th Asian Women’s Softball Championship (7-0), which was the event that qualified them for both the 2006 Asian Games and ISF world championship.

DPR Korea finished fourth and (South) Korea came in fifth place. China had been the Asian Games softball gold medalist in 1990, 1994, & 1998.

Softball (women’s fast pitch) is scheduled to make its sixth straight appearance at the next Asian Games, in November 2010 in Guangzhou, China.