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Panam Sports and the Cali-Valle 2021 Organizing Committee have announced the final sport to be added to the official sports program for the 2021 Junior Pan American Games. Women’s Softball has been announced as the final addition to the sports program for the Games. The sport will feature eight teams with a maximum of 16 players each, adding 128 more athletes to the continental event. The participating players must be in the Under-20 age category (athletes born between 2002 - 2005) between 16 and 19 years old. Therefore, the 2019 U-17 Pan American Championship held in Barranquilla will act as the qualification tournament for the Games. The qualified countries include the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and the host country Colombia. Panam Sports reached an agreement with WBSC Americas Softball for the Qualification System and with the National Olympic Committees for the financing of the airfare. Women’s Softball will be held in Barranquilla along with Men's Baseball. The city has agreed to take care of all of the accommodations and food expenses for the participating delegations of these sports. “This is great news. Softball, like baseball, is a sport that has achieved significant development in the region, that is why we are very happy with the agreement reached with the city of Barranquilla, with the Pan American Confederation and with the National Olympic Committees,” said Panam Sports Secretary General, Ivar Sisniega. “We’ll have more than 3,800 athletes for the first edition of these Games, and I’m sure that they will transform them into the most important and massive sporting event for young people in the world this year, which leaves us very proud and motivated to continue working hard from now until September to make this party an unforgettable experience for everyone,” added the former Mexican Olympic pentathlete. “We are very pleased to host Softball in Barranquilla, especially the women's tournament. The capital of the Atlantic has so much passion for this sport and baseball, disciplines that are in their blood. This is a magnificent opportunity for 'la arenosa' to be seen as a venue for the I Junior Pan American Games Cali-Valle 2021. This union of efforts between cities shows that Colombia is a country that works as a team, knows about camaraderie and is ready for great things,” said Cali 2021 Executive Director, Jose Luis Echeverry. The sports program of the First Junior Pan American Games of Cali-Valle 2021 is now composed of the following 28 sports: Aquatics (Artistic Swimming, Diving, Swimming), Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Bowling, Boxing, Canoeing, Cycling (BMX, Mountain, Road, Track) Fencing, Gymnastics (Artistic, Rhythmic, Trampoline), Handball, Judo, Karate, Modern Pentathlon, Roller Sports (Artistic, Skateboarding, Speed), Rowing, Shooting Sport (Pistol, Rifle), Squash, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Sailing, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling (Freestyle, Greco-Roman) and now Baseball/Softball.

Olympic champion Thomas Bach has been re-elected for an additional four-year term as President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the 137th IOC Session held virtually today. Thomas Bach, who won gold with the German foil fencing team at the Olympic Games Montreal 1976, was elected as IOC President at the IOC Session in 2013 in Buenos Aires for a first eight-year term. This term will finish on the closing day of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on 8 August this year. His second term as IOC President will start immediately after, and will conclude in 2025. Bach received 93 votes in his favor of his re-election, and 1 vote against. Reacting to his re-election, Bach said, “Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for this overwhelming vote of confidence and trust. For me, this is even more overwhelming considering the many reforms and the many difficult decisions we had to take, which affected all of us. You know that this touches me deeply. It also makes me humble. When you elected me for the first time as your President in 2013 in Buenos Aires, I said that I wanted to lead the IOC according to my campaign motto ‘Unity in diversity’ and be a President for all of you and for all our stakeholders. This commitment is also true for my second and last term. My door, my ears and my heart remain open for each and every one of you. I hope that I can count on your continued dedication, support and friendship also during these four more years.” In his acceptance speech addressing the IOC Members, Bach said, “In the meantime, you know me well enough that I would also like to look forward and continue to achieve ambitious goals with you also in the post-coronavirus world. We learned during this coronavirus crisis, the hard way, that we can live up to our Olympic slogan ‘faster, higher, stronger’, in sport and in life, only if we are working together in solidarity. Therefore, I would today like to inspire a discussion – a discussion with you and everybody interested in the Olympic community – on whether we should not complement this slogan by adding, after a hyphen, the word ‘together’: ‘Faster, higher, stronger – together’. This could be – from my point of view – a strong commitment to our core value of solidarity, and an appropriate and a humble adaptation to the challenges of this new world.” As an athlete, Thomas Bach was a world-class fencer, winning an Olympic gold medal. He also won two gold medals with the German foil fencing team at the World Championships in 1976 and 1977. He was a founding member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission in 1981, on which he remained until 1988. In 1991, he became an IOC Member and sat on the IOC Executive Board between 1996 and 2013. He served as IOC Vice-President from 2000 to 2004, 2006 to 2010, and from 2010 until his election as IOC President in September 2013. During his presidency, Thomas Bach received the prestigious Seoul Peace Prize and was awarded the Cem - Papandreou Peace Award. He was also the main driving force behind Olympic Agenda 2020. Bach has proven to be a polarizing figure outside of the International Olympic Committee. His reforms of the Olympic Movement have found both avid supporters and vocal critics. With his re-election, the International Olympic Committee has reaffirmed their commitment to Bach’s agenda, and his reforms for governance, gender equality, and sustainability.