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 Golden Park is a 5,000-seat baseball stadium in Columbus, Georgia, United States, that opened in 1951. Located on the Chattahoochee River in Downtown Columbus, it is currently home to the Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots as of 2021 . The exterior of the ...

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...

, United States. Final results for the

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

Medalists

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 Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

format, where each of the teams played all the other teams once. Following this, the top four teams advanced to a

Page playoff system The Page playoff system is a playoff format used primarily in softball and curling at the championship level, the Indian Premier League and Pakistan Super League cricket tournaments. Teams are seeded using a round-robin tournament and the top fou ...

round consisting of two semifinal games, and finally the bronze and gold medal games.

Group stage

The top four teams advanced to the semifinal round. ;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.

Semi finals

Bronze medal match

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

Gold medal match

Final team standings

References

Official Olympic Report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Softball At The 1996 Summer Olympics 1996 Summer Olympics events

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Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

1996 in softball Softball competitions in the United States Women's events at the 1996 Summer Olympics