Queensland softballers playing for place at the Olympics during Pacific Cup and Summer Slam

Prospective Olympians will be walking a tightrope when both the Aussie Spirit and Australia A softball team members play for a place at the Tokyo Olympic Games at the Pacific Cup and Summer Slam tournaments starting on January 30 in Sydney.

Prospective Olympians will be walking a tightrope when both the Aussie Spirit and Australia A softball team members play at the Pacific Cup and Summer Slam tournaments starting on January 30 in Sydney.

A host of Queenslanders, including Bears’ trio Chelsea Forkin, Carmelle Sorensen and Jess Torpey, will edge closer to selection after the two tournaments next month.

The selectors will name a 23 member squad after the two competitions, a group which will be trimmed to the final 15 in July.

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Head coach Laing Harrow said Olympic positions were “wide-open”, with all players in either the Spirit or Australia A sidein Games’ contention.

Bears player Chelsea Forkin running into base for AustralIa. credit WBSC

“It’s a really important tournament for us to get elite-level game time in, as well as competing with three of the teams we’ll be facing in Tokyo, that’s a great opportunity,’’ Harrow said.

“Our options are wide open with all thirty-two players to be considered for that next step on the road to the Olympics.”

Jessica Torpey is on the verge of becoming an Olympian.

Forkin, injury aside, will be a certain Olympic selection after she received the best batter award following the Open Women’s National Softball Championship which finished last week. The schoolteacher helped Queensland to third position.

Significantly she was then chosen in the Aussie Spirit side to play in the Pacific Cup alongside fellow Queenslanders, Bears’ Brooke Spence, Redlands’ Janice Blackman and PCYC Redcliffe’s Jade Wall.

Camelle Sorensen Credit: Softball Australia

This would indicate all four have the inside running on an Olympic berth.

But a host of other Queenslanders, including Kedron SHS alumni Torpey and Sorensen, remain in contention after making the Australia A side which will also play at the Pacific Cup.

Fellow Queenslanders Tamieka Whitefield, Justine Smethurst, Charisma Kerr were also in the Australia A side.

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Torpey, Forkin and Sorensen were in the Aussie Spirit team which dominated the WBSCAsia/Oceania Olympic Qualifier tournament in Shanghai, China last year.

Following the Pacific Cup and Summer Slam, Softball Australia will select 23 players to travel to the United States for the National Professional Fastpitch league where they’ll compete under the banner of the Aussie Peppers. The league is the world’s best.