Wednesday 25 July – The players and staff from the GB Women’s Fastpitch Team are meeting up today in Chiba, Japan for final preparations before the 2018 WBSC Women’s World Championship starts 
n Thursday 2 August at three ballparks near Tokyo.
This is a Women’s World Championship loaded with significance, since one team along with the host Japan will be qualified here for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and other teams will be looking to put down markers for Olympic Qualifiers to be held in 2019 or early 2020 for the Americas, Europe/Africa and Asia/Oceania.
GB goals
GB’s goal will be to prove that the programme is continuing to move forward by achieving something the team has never done at the four previous World Championships in which it’s played: get to the playoff round.
To do this will be tough: GB will have to finish in the top four of an eight-team pool that includes Japan, Canada, Australia, Italy, China, Venezuela and Botswana.
However, regardless of how well GB does at the World Championship this summer, the chance to get back to Japan for the Olympics in 2020 will be more about winning the Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier, which will probably take place in September 2019, either in Europe or possibly in Africa.
From that point of view, the World Championship’s main importance for GB is to give the players selected for it a chance to play together under pressure at the highest level.
GB team
The GB Team selected for the World Championship is:
Emmilee Blowers
Sydney Brown
Victoria Charters
Georgina Corrick
Chelsea D’Avilar
Hayley D’Avilar
Lauren Evans
Beth Fleming
Carling Hare
Chiya Louie
Kirsten Mack
Amy Moore
Nerissa Myers
Steph Pearce
Aubrey Peterson
Kendyl Scott
Chloe Wigington
The team staff is:
Head Coach: Rachael Watkeys
Assistant Coach: Liz Knight
Pitching Coach: Tina Whitlock
Team Manager: Simon Mortimer
Exercise Physiologist: Kim Hannessen
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With the return to the team this year of Kirsten Mack and the addition of Nerissa Myers, who currently plays in the National Professional League in the US, the hope is that this GB Team will have more offensive punch than the team that played in the last World Championship in 2016 in Canada or even the team that won the European bronze medal last year to qualify for the Worlds.
Other players will have matured in the course of successful college seasons this year, including GB pitcher Georgina Corrick, who was voted one of the top freshman players in the country after her first year at the University of South Florida, and Kendyl Scott, who had an outstanding season at Towson, where she led the team in nine offensive categories.
Schedule
The World Championship will get under way on Thursday 2 August, but only with the Opening Ceremony and one game to follow, featuring Japan and Italy.
A full schedule will get underway on Friday 3 August, and GB will start off with Canada at 12.30 pm local time.
For most of the rest of the first round, teams will play one game a day, but all teams will have a day when they play twice.
The GB Women will play China at 12.30 pm on Saturday 4 August, Japan at 7.00 pm on 5 August and Italy at 3.30 pm on 6 August. GB’s two-game day will come on Monday 7 August when they play Botswana at 10.00 am and Australia at 6.00 pm.
GB’s final round-robin game will be against Venezuela at 12.30 pm on Tuesday 8 August, and the next day will be a rest day for all teams.
After that, the Championship and Consolation playoffs will begin, and the final and bronze medal games will be played on Sunday 12 August.
It should be a tremendous experience both on and off the field for the GB Women, and the fact that the team is playing softball In Japan with the Olympics just two years away is a measure of how far the GB programme has come.
