The last baseball qualifying round before the Tokyo Olympic Games is to be held in Taichung from June 16 to 20, CPBL chairman Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said yesterday, adding that the league would follow disease prevention guidelines laid out by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
Tsai made the remarks during an interview with political commentator Clara Chou (周玉蔻) on her morning radio show.
Taiwan, Australia, China and the Netherlands, as well as two other countries ranked second and third in the Americas qualifiers, would compete in the final qualifiers, which would send only one team to the Games in July.
Photo: Screen grab from the Internet
The Americas qualifiers are scheduled to take place in early June in Florida, the World Baseball Softball Confederation said on Saturday last week.
While the CPBL is responsible for choosing professional baseball players for the national team, the CTBA would coordinate with the CECC to ensure that all players follow the disease prevention guidelines applicable to them during the qualifiers, Tsai said.
The league would suspend all of its games when the qualifiers begin, so that players on the national team can focus on preparing for the competition, he said.
Asked what would happen if the last qualifying round was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said Taiwan would automatically qualify to compete in Tokyo, as it ranks No. 1 in points.
“I believe the competition should be able to proceed without any problem,” he said.
Several Taiwanese playing in overseas professional leagues have returned to Taiwan, including Wang Wei-chung (王維中) and Hu Chih-wei (胡智為) of the Wei Chuan Dragons, and Chiang Shao-ching (江少慶) of the Fubon Guardians.
Chen Wei-yin (陳偉殷), who plays for the Hanshin Tigers in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, has said he is willing to compete in the qualifiers as long as the nation needs him.
CTBA secretary-general Richard Lin (林宗成) said that the association and CPBL representatives would today discuss the disease prevention guidelines to be implemented during the qualifiers.
“We have drafted a plan and will send it to the Sports Administration after the details are finalized through our meeting with the CPBL. The Sports Administration would then turn the plan over to the CECC,” he said.
The association’s proposed plan would require foreign players to undergo seven days of quarantine upon arriving in Taiwan, Lin said, adding that the CECC would have the final say on the number of days that the players should spend in quarantine.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), who is deputy head of the CECC, said that as players from five countries are to compete in the qualifier, the CTBA has been asked to submit a comprehensive disease prevention plan to the Sports Administration for a preliminary review.
“We will have experts review the plan handed to us by the Sports Administration,” Chen said.
The guidelines are likely to resemble those used to form “travel bubbles,” he added.
To ensure that the qualifiers can proceed as planned, the CECC might propose that all foreign players be quarantined for at least five days, Chen said, adding that they can only compete after they test negative for COVID-19.
Experts need to further discuss whether the players’ movements would be restricted during their stay in Taiwan, Chen said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS