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• Sports
• 11 / 09 / 2006

Taipei- Record champions Cuba beat the Netherlands 3-2 in the opener as the 16th baseball Intercontinental Cup got underway on Thursday. The 1977 champions South Korea did better later in the day by outslugging the weakest team in the event, The Phillipines, 10-0, in just six and a half innings.

The other games set for later Thursday were Australia vs Japan and Taiwan vs Italy.

Japan and Cuba are considered the strongest teams at the quadrennial event for amateur teams since they came first and second at the World Baseball Classic in the United States in March.

In addition, Cuba lead the way with nine Intercontinental Cup trophies, including the previous edition in 2002. Japan follow with two victories, at the inaugural event in 1973 and in 1997.

The Cubans team are concerned about playing well on top of having a good result.

"The players in this team have done well in previous matches, so we hope people can see the good skills of Cuban players. We want to carry on he good tradition of Cuba and have a good ranking," Cuban coach Vincent Anglada Ferrer told a pre-tournament news conference on Wednesday.

The other teams, except that of the Philippines, also have the chance of entering the semi-final, depending on their performance and luck, analysts said.

The tournament which runs until November 19 is held at two stadiums in Taichung City, central Taiwan, from November 9-19, with the opening and closing ceremonies held at the newly-built 15,000-seat Intercontinental Stadium.

The preliminaries will last until November 16. Four teams will move into the semifinals which start November 17, and the games will end with the award-presenting ceremony on November 19.

Asian teams are taking the tournament seriously as it serves as the warm-up for the December 1-15 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing also less than two years away.

The International Baseball Federation (IBAF) has introduced some reforms at the Intercontinental Cup.

IBAF Secretary-General Eduardo De Bello said on Thursday that other games and a movie last around two hours as well and that the changes can improve baseball's chance of becoming an Olympic sport again in 2016 after it has been dropped for 2012.

The timing between pitches has been reduced from 15 to 12 seconds, pitchers or relievers have four instead of eight pitches and the intentional base on ball rule has been reduced from four to one attempts.


Source: DPA