As a result, the Americans and other nations where professional baseball is developed relied on collegiate players, while Cubans used their most experienced veterans, who technically were considered amateurs as they nominally held other jobs, but in fact trained full-time.

The IOC cited the absence of the best players as the main reason for baseball being dropped from the Olympic program.

Quarterfinal Semifinal Gold medal game Roster The following players represented the United States:[5] Group play

Roster Head coach: Tony DiCicco The United States named a squad of 16 players and 4 alternates for the tournament.

[7][8][9] Lorrie Fair was invited to the squad as an alternate, but declined due to her disappointment of not making the team.

Semifinal Gold medal match * – Strug slightly injured her ankle during her first vault attempt in the final rotation of the team competition, then exacerbated the injury on her second attempt to dramatically clinch the gold for the United States.

She was replaced by highest non-qualifiers in the vault (Miller), in the floor exercise (Dawes) and in the all-around (Moceanu).

Quarterfinal 5th – 8th semifinal 7th place match Summary Roster The following players represented the United States:[16] Preliminary round