LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The World Baseball Softball Confederation today revealed the pools and official game schedule for the 2017 WBSC Junior Women's Softball World Championship, which will be staged in Clearwater, Florida (USA), from 24-30 July.

The record 26 nations in the women's youth softball flagship event have been drawn into four pools and will play a round-robin to begin the world tournament:  

Pool A: Chinese Taipei, Guatemala, Italy, Philippines, Turkey, South Africa, USA
Pool B: Australia, Bahamas, Brazil, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Peru
Pool C: Argentina, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, India, New Zealand, Puerto Rico
Pool D: Canada, China, Great Britain, Ireland, Korea, Mexico

The official tournament schedule features a total of 99 games, which will be played over seven days before crowning softball's world champions.

(See Official Schedule)

Opening ceremonies will be held on Sunday, 23 July, at the Sheraton Sand Key beach at 18:00.

All 26 participating National Teams will be competing on Opening Day, with action opening on Monday, 24 July at 09:00 local time.

Days 1 - 4 will feature round-robin action of each pool.

Nations will be battling to finish among the top two in their respective groups to advance into the championship round-robin (2 pools). Nations finishing third and fourth in pool play will be placed in a placement pool and play in a double page system to determine 9th to 16th Place. Nations finishing lower than 4th Place in their respective pools will compete against each other in a single elimination format for 17th to 26th Place.

Days 5 and 6 will see the championship section through the double page playoff and the placement section continuing through either a double page or single elimination format depending on their round robin finish.

Day 7 will showcase the bronze and gold medal games, in addition to the placement round final.

The gold medal game will take centre stage on Sunday, 30 July, at 16:00, and will be preceded by the bronze medal match at 14:30.