FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
02 July 2002
BY THE NUMBERS
This is the fifth in a series of eight weekly releases leading up to the International Softball Federation's X Women's World Championship, to be played July 26 - August 4 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, from which four teams will qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Today's feature looks at the some of the elements of the event from a numbers point of view. (The first four releases in this series of eight can be viewed from the Press Releases page on the ISF's official website.)
The data has already been reported: X Women's World Championship, first of the 21st century, 16 teams, four will qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, and an event which spans ten days. But what of the many other elements of an event that only comes along once every four years?
It's a mathematician's playground.
The team traveling the farthest will be South Africa, the center of which is 9,478 miles from Saskatoon. Rounding out the top three are Australia (8,738 miles to Saskatoon from the center of Australia), and New Zealand (7,963 miles from Wellington, home of the New Zealand Softball Association). The remainder of the list is as follows:
4. 6,374 - Chinese Taipei
5. 5,588 - China
6. 5,188 - Japan
7. 5,010 - Italy
8. 4,723 - Russia
9. 4,592 - Czech Republic
10. 4,214 - Netherlands
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11. 3,625 - Venezuela
12. 3,481 - Netherlands Antilles
13. 3,193 - Puerto Rico
14. 2,377 - Cuba
15. 1,474 - Canada
16. 1,236 - USA |
(NOTE: numbers 10-12 are all from the "center" of that country; 4-9 and 13-16 are from the location of that country's softball federation.)
The long journey continues when they get there. The tournament has a total of 66 games scheduled before anyone can stake claim to gold.
Looking back at past finishers, the medal counts are as follows: USA - 8, Australia - 5, Japan - 4, New Zealand - 4, China - 3, Canada - 1, and Chinese Taipei - 1. (The other not accounted for here was won by the Philippines, a non-participant at this summer's event.)
Watching all of this unfold will be fans from Saskatoon, Canada, and around the world, in 5,000-seat Bob Van Impe Stadium, which opened in 1987 and hosted the ISF VII Men's World Championship (1988). (NOTE: Some games are also scheduled in the 36-year old, 1,000-seat Gordon Howe Bowl.) A total of almost 64 thousand attended the games of the last Women's World Championship (ISF's IX, 1998 in Japan).
There are 24 more days until the action begins to find out who is Number One. But who's counting?
The International Softball Federation, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2002, is the governing body of softball internationally as recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). The ISF organizes and conducts world championship competition in women's and men's fast pitch, junior women's and men's fast pitch, women's, men's, and coed slow pitch, and women's and men's modified pitch. Softball (women's fast pitch) made its Olympic debut at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. There are 125 affiliated countries in the ISF and over 40 million participants in the sport worldwide.
For more information, please contact ISF Director of Communications Bruce Wawrzyniak at brucew@internationalsoftball.com or (813) 864-0100, ext. 229.
