Hosts are among the favourites in baseball while the US hope to belatedly atone for their 2008 final shock in softball
Baseball, which was formally added as a medal sport in 1992, and softball, which joined it four years later, became the first sports in seven decades to be eliminated from the Olympic programme following the 2008 Beijing Games. The surprise vote by an International Olympic Committee that is typically broken toward expansion has been generally attributed to Major League Baseball’s refusal to pause its summer-long season and allow the sport’s best players to participate, while softball’s removal was widely interpreted – at least in American circles – as a punishment for Team USA’s dominance.
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