(BEIJING, June 19) -- Play Ball!

The Good Luck Beijing 2007 International Baseball Tournament is slated for this August 18-23 at the all-new Wukesong Baseball Field.

This tournament will be the first competition to be hosted at the baseball stadium since its construction. Teams representing France, Japan, Czech Republic, and Olympic host China will participate in the baseball tournament, with more than 120 registered players and officials.

Additionally, the International Baseball Association (IBA) will send 50 representatives and officials to the tournament from the international media and technology arenas.

The tournament will follow the Olympic baseball competition format, in which the preliminary round takes a round robin format and each team play all the other teams once.

The top teams advance to semi-final and final elimination rounds with gold, silver, and bronze medalists determined through 10 games.

The Haidian District Government has taken measures to clean up over 240,000 sq m of land in preparation for the Good Luck Beijing tournament, including the removal of excess buildings and billboards, as well as sanitizing and re-painting buildings.

BOCOG's baseball organizing committee will be recruiting and training 450 volunteers from the Beijing Institute of Technology, the China Youth University for Political Science, and the University for Science and Technology Beijing.

On June 18, the baseball competition's organizing committee of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) released an update on the progress of preparations for the tournament, including the status of the baseball field's construction. Construction of the Wukesong Baseball Field -- home of 2008 Olympic Baseball -- began in December 2005, with its completion scheduled for mid-July 2007.

The stadium has a planned total area of 14,146 sq m and building area of 12,306 sq m. There is seating capacity for 12,000, with 1,000 permanent seats and 11,000 temporary seats.