Taipei, June 28 (CNA) Taiwan has risen two spots to a historical high of No. 2 in the World Baseball Softball Confederation's (WBSC's) world rankings for men's baseball, after strong showings of its teams in international tournaments in 2019.
Taiwan has accumulated 3,590 ranking points since 2018, according to the rankings released by the world governing body for baseball and softball.
The rankings are based on the performance of a country's teams in WBSC tournaments over the last four years, with major international events given a higher weighting than minor events.
They do not take into account, however, the caliber of a country's professional baseball league or its players competing professionally around the world.
Taiwan's teams, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, finished fifth at the flagship Premier 12 in November 2019 and took home the championship trophy at the Asian Championship in October that same year.
The two tournaments earned Taiwan 807 points and 120 points, respectively.
In other tournaments held in 2019, Taiwan's team won both the U-18 Baseball World Cup in August and U-12 Baseball World Cup in July, earning 575 points and 345 points, respectively.
In 2018, teams representing Taiwan participated in nine tournaments, among them the Asian Games, in which Taiwan finished third and earned 223 points, and the U-23 Baseball World Cup, in which Taiwan finished fifth and earned 404 points.
Japan remained No. 1 in the latest rankings, with 4,141 points, while South Korea was third with 3,452 points, followed by the United States, 3,114 points, and Mexico, 2,483 points.
Six teams -- Japan, Korea, the United States, Mexico, the Dominican Republic (7th) and Israel (24th) -- will compete at the Tokyo Olympic games next month.
Taiwan missed out on its last chance to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics when it decided not to participate in a final qualifying tournament in Mexico last week due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That last tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Taiwan but it was moved after the number of COVID-19 cases here surged in the second half of May.
