It’s a return to the Games cycle 13 years in the making with Australia’s newest Olympians fully prepared following a six-week camp in Ota City, north of Tokyo.

Having settled into their surroundings of the Olympic Village over the weekend, the Aussie Spirit have hit the refresh switch, their new surroundings and being amongst fellow Olympians across the world has come at just the right time.

The Olympic softballers have made themselves accustomed to the Yokohama Baseball Stadium where they’ll play fixtures three to five, both medal matches taking place in the venue as well.

And after arriving Monday in Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium, the Aussie Spirit have ticked every box in preparation of their first official international fixture since the 2020 Australia Pacific Cup.

Head Coach Laing Harrow says under the circumstances, their preparation has the Olympian’s primed, and importantly, accustomed to the unique way Tokyo 2020 will be conducted under Covid restrictions.

“First of all, we’ve had six weeks inside a hotel adhering to the Japanese government restrictions with daily testing, mask wearing and no movement outside of the hotel to the diamond,” said Harrow.

“It’s second nature to the players now, off the diamond there will be few, if any, surprises on how this Games will operate.

“That being said, it was certainly nice to be amongst the rest of the Australian Team inside the village and have interaction with people outside of our travelling party of twenty-three players and staff.

“It was the perfect way to start the final chapter of our Olympic campaign.”

As far as on-diamond performance goes, the Aussie Spirit will have a level of familiarity there too, having been fortunate enough to play against their opening round opponents Japan during their Ota City Camp.

“Playing those games against elite opposition is invaluable,” added Harrow.

“They have a lot of talent across their roster so we’ve been able to take some lessons from those match-ups, hopefully it pays off on Wednesday.”

In their last international match-up, which was on home soil in Sydney for the 2020 Australia Pacific Cup, Japan came out on top in the final with a comfortable 7-0 win in the tournament’s final.

However, Olympic competition tells a much closer tale, Australia has four wins and four losses against the current gold medallists, all four losses have just a single run as a margin of victory.

Wednesday, 9:00am Tokyo time (10:00am AEST), the Aussie Spirit aim to tip the scales back in their favour.

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