Ⓒ JoongAng Ilbo / JoongAng Ilbo Japanese version2021.08.03 09:50
Chung Yong-jin, the owner of Korean professional baseball SSG Landers, posted a comment on Instagram saying, “Please explain. I don’t understand.” It is with a photograph that captures the competition table of the Tokyo Olympics (Olympic Games) baseball produced by KBO (Korean Professional Baseball League). The official Instagram side of KBO replied “I’m sorry”, but I deleted it because it became a hot topic.
The complex tournament system of baseball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is also attracting attention. It is difficult for many people, and even baseball fans, to understand the baseball schedule for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at a glance. This is because the tournament system is very unique.
It will be held in the “transformation repechage” method. In the knockout stage held after the qualifying round, except for the teams that lost in the match of the 3rd place team in each group, even if they lose once, if they win the next game, they will have the opportunity to advance to the upper round again. Until the final, at least 5 games, at most 8 games will be played.
Among the 6 teams that participated, the 1st place team in each group will play against each other with 4 strong tickets. Japan was ranked first in Group A, and the United States was ranked first in Group B.
In the knockout stage, Group A 2nd (Dominican Republic) and Group B 2nd (Republic of Korea) played the match (1st), and Group A 3rd (Mexico) and Group B 3rd (Israel) played first. The team that wins each match will advance to the second round of the knockout stage and play against each other. The winning team will face the winner of the Japan-US match on the 4th to advance to the final.
South Korea falls under this category. South Korea defeated the Dominican Republic 4-3 on the 1st and defeated Israel 11-1 (7th cold) on the 2nd, beating Mexico. Due to the unique tournament schedule and management system, South Korea played against Israel at 12:00 noon, about 13 hours after the match against Dominican Republic on the 1st.
South Korea has overcome a tight match schedule. Of the six participating countries in this tournament, he was the first to decide to advance to the semi-finals. If he lost the match against Israel on the 2nd, he had a murderous schedule to play every day from the 1st to the 5th in order to advance to the final.
Israel and Dominican Republic lost to South Korea, but the gold medal challenge was not turned down. However, from now on, if you lose even one game, you will be eliminated. Both teams will play on the 3rd. The winning team will face the loser of the Japan-US match (USA) on the 4th with a ticket to advance to the semi-finals. The winning team will play against the winner of the match between the 1st place in the group (Japan) -the team that lost in the Korean semi-final to advance to the final.
The tournament format was decided by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). However, the influence of Japan, the host country, cannot be ruled out.
Baseball is Japan’s “national sport.” However, he has never won a gold medal at the Olympics. He lost to South Korea in the 2000 Sydney Olympics bronze medal match and the 2008 Beijing Olympics semifinals. For this reason, this tournament system may act as a kind of “safety device” in Japan, which has prepared its strength. It is also Japan’s choice that baseball has been officially adopted as an event for the first time in 12 years. In addition, since there are only 6 participating countries, unique methods such as the knockout stage and the repechage were applied.
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