Softball at the 1996 Summer Olympics

Softball at the Games of the XXVI Olympiad
Venue	Golden Park
Dates	July 21–30
Teams	8
Medalists
United States  China  Australia
2000 →

Women's softball made its first appearance as an official medal sport at the 1996 Summer Olympics. The competition was held at historic Golden Park in Columbus, Georgia, United States. Final results for the Softball competition at the 1996 Summer Olympics:

Medalists[]

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Women's tournament	United States (USA) Laura Berg Gillian Boxx Sheila Cornell Lisa Fernandez Michele Granger Lori Harrigan Dionna Harris Kim Maher Leah O'Brien Dot Richardson Julie Smith Michele Smith Shelly Stokes Danielle Tyler Christa Lee Williams	China (CHN) An Zhongxin Chen Hong He Liping Lei Li Liu Xuqing Liu Yaju Ma Ying Ou Jingbai Tao Hua Wang Lihong Wang Ying Wei Qiang Xu Jian Yan Fang Zhang Chunfang	Australia (AUS) Joanne Brown Kim Cooper Carolyn Crudgington Kerry Dienelt Peta Edebone Tanya Harding Jennifer Holliday Joyce Lester Sally McDermid Francine McRae Haylea Petrie Nicole Richardson Melanie Roche Natalie Ward Brooke Wilkins

Participants[]

Competition format[]

Eight teams competed in the Olympic softball tournament, and the competition consisted of two rounds. The preliminary round followed a round robin format, where each of the teams played all the other teams once. Following this, the top four teams advanced to a Page playoff system round consisting of two semifinal games, and finally the bronze and gold medal games.

Group stage[]

	Qualified for the semifinals
	Eliminated

The top four teams advanced to the semifinal round.

Team	W	L	RS	RA	WIN%	GB	Tiebreaker
United States	6	1	37	7	.857	-	-
China	5	2	29	9	.714	1	3 RA vs. AUS/JPN
Australia	5	2	22	11	.714	1	6 RA vs. CHN/JPN
Japan	5	2	24	18	.714	1	10 RA vs. CHN/AUS
Canada	3	4	15	17	.429	3	-
Chinese Taipei	2	5	19	19	.286	4	-
Netherlands	1	6	4	32	.143	5	1–0 vs. PUR
Puerto Rico	1	6	5	44	.143	5	0–1 vs. NED

July 21

July 22

July 23

July 24

July 25

July 26

July 27

Medal round[]

The loser of 1&2 seed game played the winner of the 3&4 seed game in the bronze medal match. The loser of the bronze medal match won the bronze medal while the winner went on to play the winner of the 1&2 seed game for the gold medal in the gold medal match.

	Semifinals					Bronze medal game					Gold medal game
	1	United States	1
	2	China	0								1	United States	3
						2	China	4			2	China	1
						3	Australia	2
	3	Australia	3
	4	Japan	0

Semi finals[]

Bronze medal match[]

Winner advanced to gold medal match. Loser won bronze medal.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
China	0	1	0	1	1	0	1	4	5	2
Australia	0	2	0	2	0	0	0	2	2	2
WP: Wang L (4-2)   LP: Roche (2-2)

Gold medal match[]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
China	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	4	2
United States	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	3	4	0
WP: Michele Granger (2-0)   LP: Liu Y(0-1)   Sv: Fernandez (1)

Final team standings[]

Rank	Team	Games	Wins	Losses
	United States (USA)	9	8	1
	China (CHN)	10	6	4
	Australia (AUS)	9	6	3
4	Japan (JPN)	8	5	3
5	Canada (CAN)	7	3	4
6	Chinese Taipei (TPE)	7	2	5
7	Netherlands (NED)	7	1	6
8	Puerto Rico (PUR)	7	1	6

References[]

• Official Olympic Report