The 4721 days between drinks for Australia's softball team

Try 4721 days. When Australia square off against Canada next Saturday morning, it'll mark the first time the Aussie Spirit have taken to an Olympics diamond since their bronze medal playoff against Japan at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Kevin Rudd had barely spent six months in the Prime Ministerial chair back then. Barack Obama was still in campaign mode, and the NRL were still unwise to the Melbourne Storm's creative approach to salary cap management.

Softball is a rotating sport at the Olympics, and will be banished from the program again for the 2024 Games in Paris, meaning Tokyo could be Australia's only chance for another long while to land an elusive gold medal.

Canberra's Clare Warwick and her Spirit teammates landed in Tokyo almost seven weeks ago, becoming the first Australian team to arrive in Japan.

Already waiting for the squad in Japan were captain Stacey Porter, and pitcher Kaia Parnaby who both play the sport professionally in that country.

Porter is the only surviving member of Australia's bronze medal winning team from Beijing.

"I guess that happens when there's 13 years in between your last Olympic event and now," Porter told the Canberra Times from Tokyo.

"Full credit to the girls, a good chunk of the 15 [in the squad] have been around just about that whole time. It's nice that they will eventually get to be on that Olympic stage.

"It's going to be a unique Olympics no matter what. I'm sure everyone has to be prepared for something a little bit different, I don't think we'll be behind the eight ball at all."

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Since arriving in Japan, the Spirit have been locked down in a training bubble while undergoing daily Covid tests.

Each day they travel from their hotel rooms to a service lift, exit the building through the back door onto the team bus and drive straight to the diamond where they, typically, play a scratch match against a local team.

Recovery is often done in pools set up at the training venue, while the squad has also been taking ice baths in their hotel rooms.

Japan is one of the global epicentres of softball, and the home nation is expected to perform strongly.

"Typically USA and Japan are the big softball nations and then you've got Canada, Mexico, Australia and Italy as well," Warwick said.

"Maybe a slight advantage is taken away [due to the lack of crowds] but they are so prepared the Japanese, anything they do I'm sure is independent of their surroundings. They're still going to be a really tough side to beat.

"At the end of the day, we've trained so hard, we know exactly who we're up against, we do have a bit of a legacy to keep going and we're all excited for the opportunity to do it."

Like most of her teammates, Warwick is familiar with the Japanese surroundings. While she doesn't play there professionally like Porter and Parnaby - Warwick works as a teacher in Gungahlin when she's not representing Australia on the diamond - she has been part of several tours to the Asian nation.

She also has six years of playing in Italy as a semi-professional under her belt. It was there she learned the language, which she now teaches her students at Harrison Primary.

Warwick had an Olympics taste in 2008 when she was a reserve for the Australian side, and said representing her country on the biggest stage had been a long time coming.

"It's been a long wait, so there's excitement, there's anticipation but also very understanding of the fact that we're in the midst of a global pandemic and we want to do everything safely and ethically," Warwick said.

"There's a bit of anxiety layered on top of that along with the anxiety of selection. There's a whole bag of feelings and emotions that come with leaving and preparation and then finally the Olympics."

Porter was determined to make this rare Olympics opportunity count.

"We've medalled at every Olympics, we've got three bronze and a silver, so there's definitely a colour missing," the captain said. "World softball at the moment has levelled out a fair bit."