The absence of a Dream Team from the US has opened up the baseball competition at the Games for South Korea and Japan to challenge the traditional powerhouse of Cuba.

Because the Olympics coincide with the last two weeks of the Major League pennant races, the US named a team on Thursday that was mostly made up of journeymen and minor leaguers to challenge Cuba, who took the gold in Atlanta four years ago and in Barcelona in 1992 when the sport made its Olympic debut.

"We'll now have a great tournament, probably the best international tournament ever," said Joe Reaves, one of the organisers of the competition which runs from September 17th to September 27th. "Besides the Cubans and the United States, the Japanese are bringing a great squad and the Koreans are shutting down their pro league for two weeks to compete."