Brittany Cervantes remembers watching softball in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She was just beginning her freshman year at Kentucky, where she would try to stay up late and watch the games. Due to the major time difference in Beijing, she would just watch it the next day.
From 1996-2008, softball was played in the summer Olympics but, along with baseball, it was removed from the program. It was the first time since 1936 that a sport was removed from the Olympics. Then in 2016, baseball and softball were voted to return for the 2020 games. After the COVID-10 pandemic delayed the games by one year, the Olympics are finally set to take place at the end of July.