BEIJING — As it turns out, the face that might save Olympic softball doesn’t belong to Jennie Finch.
When the International Olympic Committee meets next year in Copenhagen to decide whether the sport gets reinstated for the 2016 Games, it’s quite possible the memories from an amazing 36 hours put in by Japan’s Yukiko Ueno will still be etched in their minds.
Thursday night, the 26-year-old led her team to arguably the most stunning upset of the Beijing Games, topping the United States 3-1 in the gold-medal game. It marked the first time in four Olympiads that the Americans — who hadn’t given up an earned run in this year’s tournament — failed to win.
That was mainly because of Ueno. She pitched nine innings in a 4-1 semifinal loss to the U.S. on Wednesday. Under softball rules, Japan could still return to the gold-medal game if it could beat Australia, the winner of the other semifinal.
That game went 12 innings, with Japan eventually taking a 4-3 decision. The hurler for all 12 frames? Ueno.
Even after throwing 21 innings and an estimated 300 pitches, Ueno was nastier Thursday. When the game ended, the frustration the Americans felt all night was released in an explosion of emotion. Cat Osterman, the starting and losing pitcher, collapsed into the arms of her coach, Mike Candrea, sobbing uncontrollably.
It was a stunning end for a team riding a 22-game Olympic winning streak, one that had drawn comparisons to the Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson-led basketball Dream Team of 1992.
“We just couldn’t buy a hit when we needed one and, frankly, Japan was the better team tonight,” Candrea said. “But I still love this team. As athletes it’s hard to handle the disappointment, but it’s like I told them after the game, there will be other things in their life more tragic than what happened tonight.”
It’s possible the sting from Thursday’s loss will be softened next October in Denmark.
Softball, which isn’t on the program for the 2012 Games in London, is one of seven sports that will be considered for what are two open slots in 2016. When it was dropped in 2005, the official reason given by the IOC was that the sport wasn’t “universal” enough — that is, that there were only three or four nations at a high competitive level.
However, there were other factors.
“I suppose if you were worried that you were keeping a sport that the Americans were guaranteed to win, Japan just drove a stake through the heart of that argument,” said Dick Pound, an IOC member from Canada. “I just think the real difficulty was that people thought it was ‘women’s baseball,’ and the members were mad at baseball for not sending the best players to the Games and not caring at all about doping.”
IOC president Jacques Rogge was at Wednesday’s Japan-Australia marathon, a sighting that heartened softball officials looking for any positive sign. But Pound was dismissive of what he called a gesture.
“That’s his duty,” Pound said. “He has to go to something in all 28 sports or else all the international federations will throw a hissy fit.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
