Baseball at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Baseball at the 2000 Summer Olympics was the third time an Olympic baseball tournament had been held as a full medal sport, and the ninth time it had been part of the Summer Olympic Games in any capacity. It was held in Sydney, Australia from 17 September through to the bronze and gold medal games on 27 September. Two venues were used for the Games: the Sydney Baseball Stadium and Blacktown Olympic Park. For the first time in Olympic competition, professional baseball players were eligible to participate, though no active players from Major League Baseball were available.
2000 Summer Olympics
Sydney won the right to host the Games on 24 September 1993, after being selected over Beijing, Berlin, Istanbul and Manchester in four rounds of voting, at the 101st IOC Session in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The Australian city of Melbourne had lost out to Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Olympics four years earlier. Beijing lost its bid to host the games to Sydney in 1993, but was later awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics in July 2001 after Sydney hosted the previous year, and it would eventually be awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics twenty-two years later in 2015. Although it is impossible to know why members of the International Olympic Committee voted for Sydney over Beijing in 1993, it appears that an important role was played by Human Rights Watch's campaign to "stop Beijing" because of China's human rights record. Many in China were angry at what they saw as U.S.-led interference in the vote, and the outcome contributed to rising anti-Western sentiment in China and tensions in Sino-American relations.