The Great Britain Women's Fastpitch Softball Team arrived in Canada on Wednesday, June 27 to begin a summer tour that will include the prestigious Canadian Open Fastpitch Championships, scheduled for June 30-July 8 near Vancouver, and then the 13th ISF Women's World Championships, to be played in Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon Territory, from July 13-22.
Canadian Open
In the Canadian Open, which Great Britain and other teams are using as a warm-up for the World Championships, GB will compete in the Elite Division against national teams from Peru and Mexico and high-level teams from China, Indonesia, Canada and the United States.
The GB Team, which will have little time to train before the tournament begins, will play two exhibition games before the competition starts and then could face as many as 12 or 13 games in nine days. But this is just the preparation the team will need before taking on the might of world softball in Whitehorse.
World Championships
Sixteen teams will take part in the ISF Women's World Championships, now a biennial competition, and the pinnacle event for women's fastpitch softball since the sport was controversially dropped from the Olympic programme for London 2012.
The GB Women's Team has qualified by right for the last two World Championships as one of the top three teams in Europe. Great Britain finished second in European Championships in 2009 and third in 2011.
In the 2010 World Championships, played in Caracas, Venezuela, Great Britain finished in 11th place, a tremendous achievement for a team with no public funding, a small player pool to choose from and little public or media profile in the UK.
A further measure of how far the Great Britain team has come on the world softball stage was seen last summer, when the team was invited to take part in the annual World Cup of Softball in Oklahoma City, an event televised worldwide by ESPN.
Playing against the top four teams in the world – the US, Japan, Canada and Australia, along with the Czech Republic – Great Britain was competitive in every game against the world's top four, and defeated the Czech Republic twice.
This year, GB Women's Team players, many of whom are students, will be paying around £1500 each to compete for their country in Canada. It would have been even more, but the team has received 12 free flights to Vancouver from British Airways and has received a private donation of £10,000.
World event
The 16 teams that will compete in the World Championships in Whitehorse reflect the fact that softball is truly a global sport.
Current World Champions USA and 2008 Olympic Champions Japan will be favoured to meet in the final, but there will be strong challenges from Canada, Australia, China, Venezuela and Chinese Taipei.
Great Britain's goal is to make it to the playoff rounds, which will guarantee a finish as one of the top eight teams in the world. Other countries with playoff aspirations include the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Italy, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and the Czech Republic.
Young players
Great Britain's squad for the tournaments in Canada has been selected with an eye on the future.
Three members of the GB Under-19 Team have been chosen by Head Coach Hayley Scott as part of the Women's Team in Canada: pitcher Carling Hare, who played for the GB Women last summer, and infielders Amy Wells and Sara Robb, who will be playing at this level for the first time.
Two recent GB Under-19 players – Steph Pearce and Ali Parkerson – have now established themselves in the Women's squad, so there will be plenty of young talent to take the team forward in the future.
Reports
Reports on all GB Women's games in Canada will be available on the BSF website and all games from the World Championships will be web-streamed live from Whitehorse.
For more details, including a schedule of GB games from the World Championships, click here.