Taipei - The coach of Taiwan's national baseball team resigned Friday over the team's loss in the 37th Baseball World Cup and the Asian Olympic Baseball Qualifiers. The Chinese-Taipei Baseball Association said it had approved Kuo's request to resign so that he can rest for a while. The new coach for the national team will be named next week, the Central News Agency said.
The Taiwan team is one of the top three baseball teams in Asia, along with Japanese and South Korean teams. But Taiwan baseball players' performance has deteriorated in recent years.
In the 37th Baseball World Cup, held in Taipei in November, Taiwan ranked 8th among the 16 teams.
In the Asian Olympics Baseball Qualifiers early this month, Taiwan finished third of the three teams participating, losing the chance to represent Asia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Japan beat South Korea and Taiwan to win the ticket to the Beijing Olympics.
However, Taiwan still has a chance to compete, in March 2008, with seven No 2 or No 3 teams from Europe, North America, Africa and Oceania for 3 wild cards for the Beijing Olympics.
