USA Softball's Jennie Finch, Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman may be the best pitching trio ever assembled on one softball team, going a combined 47-1 and striking out an astonishing 630+ batters so far on the Bound 4 Beijing Tour. The American hitters are just as potent and make the Americans the favorite to win another gold medal in Beijing.

Yet there are a number of players on opposing rosters looking to derail the U.S.' gold medal plans. From China to Canada and Australia, softball is truly becoming a global game as players are getting started earlier and earlier, just like in the U.S.

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Meet Li Chunxia, a Chinese softball star looking to win a medal in her home country. As starting shortstop, she is one of the team's most experienced players. Like many Americans, she started playing softball in elementary school. By the age of 15, she was selected to the national team training program and got to work out with the national team. She narrowly missed out on making the '96 team, then made both the 2000 and 2004 teams only to come in fourth place both times.

"If I have a chance to meet officials from International Olympic Committee, I would tell them that softball is not only popular in Europe and the United States," she recently told the China View news agency. "Hopefully after the London Games in 2012, the sport could return to the Olympic arena."

Australia might just be the U.S. biggest competition after winning the silver medal in 2004. And they are back as strong as ever. Stacey Porter is swinging the hottest bat for the Aussies right now, a veteran of that Athens team who also played at the University of Hawaii on a softball scholarship from 2001-2003. Natalie Ward may be the most recognizable name in Australian softball as she prepares to play in her fourth Olympics, but Porter is a star in the making. She knocked in the only run against the USA in the Gold Medal match in 2004 and has emerged as one of the most feared hitters in the world.

Speaking of feared, Japan's pitchers could very carry the growing softball power to a medal. Remember the name Yukiko Ueno, arguably the hardest-throwing pitcher in women's softball. Japan is coming off a win over Australia in the Grand Final of the Canada Cup and is battle-tested against the United States. In fact, Japan beat the U.S. in several of those big games, including the 2005 World Cup Finals.

On any given day, in any given game, any one of these world-class players is capable of delivering a knockout performance and winning a game for her team. That's why we watch... 8 teams, one dream. Games begin on August 12 at Fengtai Field in Beijing.