Japan shocks US in olympic softball finale

After outlasting Japan in an extra innings epic on Wednesday, the United States women’s softball team was shocked in the gold medal game by the same team.  Yukiko Ueno, who shut down the Americans for 7 innings in the last meeting, was brilliant once again allowing only 5 hits and 1 ER.  The US women didn’t help their own cause, looking listless and unfocused.  It appeared that they thought the gold medal was a foregone conclusion and that they could just “phone it in”.  Japan had other ideas.

It was an ignominious end to 16 years of Olympic softball dominance by the United States, who had won three straight gold medals prior to their silver medal ‘consolation prize’ this year.  This will be the last appearance by softball until at least 2016, as the IOC has dropped the games as a result of the American dominance and the lack of competitive performances by the European countries.

No matter how you slice it, the United States has owned Olympic softball.  Prior to this loss they had won 22 straight in Olympic competition dating back to the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia (ironically, Japan was the last team that beat them prior to their unbeaten streak).  In 36 total Olympic appearances, the US Women had posted a 32-4 mark.  Even with the 3-1 loss in the finale, the US outscored their opponents in Beijing by a staggering 58-5 margin.  4 years ago in Greece, their dominance was even more complete as they eclipsed the rest of the field by a 51-1 combined score.

Ueno dominated not by being overpowering, but in the same way that Greg Maddux has owned opposing batters during his certain Hall of Fame career—she had masterful control of her pitches and the pluck to get out of bad situations.  Like Maddux, she did this by forcing opponents to hit the ball where she wanted as opposed to striking them out.  It was likely this technique as much as anything that allowed her to come back on 24 hours rest and pitch so effectively.

So that’s that for Olympic softball, at least for the time being.  As noted above, the IOC dropped the games at the behest of their European cronies and while there has been a petition made to have the sport reinstated for the 2016 Olympics there are no guarantees that this will occur.  The United States women dominated the sport since its inception at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics but couldn’t do what they needed to do in order to write the final chapter.