Euro teams hope for Olympic host status

The baseball and softball teams of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Spain could gain automatic qualification to the 2012 Olympic games as the host nation -- if their Olympic bid is successful, and the bat-and-ball sports are still on the Olympic programme by then. The IOC today annouced the short-list of candidate cities for the 2012 games. The list includes London, Paris, Moscow and Madrid. Germany will have to qualify the hard way if its national teams are to reach the Olympics. The Leipzig bid was one of those eliminated, along with Havana, Rio de Janeiro, and Istanbul. The other remaining candidate city is New York. For international baseball, this would be an interesting result: The proposed tournament venue there is Yankee Stadium (how cool would that be!?). Moreover, hosting the games in the Big Apple would ensure that the USA's participation in the Olympic baseball tournament, which, as we have seen this year, is by no means a foregone conclusion!