At a news briefing given by the Handball, Hockey, Baseball and Softball Administrative Centre in Beijing on August 25, 2006 on the upcoming ISF Women's Fast Pitch Championship, Jiang Xiuyun, deputy director of the centre, Qi Yan and Michael Bastian, team manager and head coach of the Chinese national softball team, briefed the media on preparations and present situations of the participating teams, and presented key players and coaches of the Chinese team to the media.

According to Qi Yan, the Chinese national team had a reshuffle after the 2004 Olympic Games. On the current team there are no veteran players and members of the team are still running in their teamwork for better performance. It is expected that the players will gain experience through this world championship so as to gear themselves for the Beijing Olympic Games in less than two years' time.

Jiang Xiuyun said as the world's top teams were well matched in strength today the Chinese Softball Association had invited the American coach Michael Bastian to help raise China's technical level and to bring brand-new ideas of pitching over to this country.

Michael Bastian predicted the Beijiing World Championship to be a closely-fought competition among such formidable opponents as the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada. He revealed his goal for Team China this time was to enter the final round, for which his players had to go all out to bring out their best.

Following the briefing the media was invited to watch the host team's final warm-up session at the softball training base located inside the Beijing Olympic Centre.