As its exclusive nutritional supplement partner, Thorne Research will provide members of the USA Softball national teams with "safe and effective" nutritional supplements to support their health, while offering discounted products to USA Softball members.

"Our partnership with Thorne Research is an example of a new era because it allows us to offer the highest quality line of nutritional supplements to our membership and highest performing athletes alike while having access to state-of-the art health-related educational resources as well," said Stacey Hepp, USA Softball’s managing director of marketing.

As part of the partnership, Thorne Research will provide USA Softball athletes with products that are said to have the highest level of certification, baseline nutritional level testing through health consultant WellnessFX, educational materials, and risk protection.

In addition, athletes will have access to health information from Mayo Clinic, which it is hoped will help athletes evaluate supplement usage and aid understanding of supplement labels, manufacturing, and regulations.

"The fact that Thorne works so closely with the Mayo Clinic and has been vetted by the US Olympic Committee gives us great comfort in building our partnership with Thorne," added Hepp.

Members of the USA Softball women’s national team have already begun making use of Thorne’s nutritional supplements, such as amino acid and electrolyte dietary supplements and whey protein isolates.

They also received one-on-one instruction from Thorne’s director of sports performance, Tom Pazdernik, on utilising Thorne’s products for maximum efficiency.

"We are very excited to have Thorne Research as our partner for our athlete’s wellness programme," said Ken Eriksen, head coach of USA Softball women’s national team.

"With a high performance programme being developed following the announcement of softball’s inclusion in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Thorne’s product line gives USA Softball some great options for our nutritional needs."

Thorne Research already has similar deals with USA Gymnastics, USA Rugby, USA Triathlon, USRowing, USA Pentathlon, USA Fencing, and USA Taekwondo.

"We are honoured that USA Softball has chosen to partner with us to help provide safe and proven nutritional supplements to contribute to the well-being of the competitive and elite athletes in the sport," said Paul Jacobson, chief executive of Thorne Research.

"Major advances in the development, research, and monitoring of nutritional supplements have enabled us to provide safe, clean supplements that are scientifically formulated, made with rigorously studied and clinically researched ingredients, and are NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) Certified for Sport for softball."

Last month, the United States avenged their losses in the previous two finals of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Women's Softball World Championship to Japan with a 7-3 victory to clinch the gold medal in Surrey in Canada.

The US had won seven consecutive gold medals at the event before succumbing to defeat two editions in a row to Japan, who also beat the Americans in the final of the Olympic competition at Beijing 2008.