Which organization historically qualified teams for Olympic softball competition?

• A. International Olympic Committee
• B. General Association of International Sports Federations
• C. Major League Baseball
• D. International Softball Federation

Answer: (D)

The key idea is understanding who actually runs the international pathway for a sport. For softball, the global governing body at the time was the International Softball Federation. This organization set the rules, organized world championships, and administered the regional and world qualifying tournaments that determined which national teams earned berths in the Olympic softball competition. The Olympic Games themselves are overseen by the International Olympic Committee, but the job of creating and running the qualification events for softball fell to the ISF. The other options don’t manage these qualifiers—Major League Baseball operates professional club teams, and the General Association of International Sports Federations is an umbrella group, not the entity that runs sport-specific Olympic qualifiers. After the ISF era, the governance shifted to the World Baseball Softball Confederation, but historically the qualification process was the responsibility of the International Softball Federation.